Shelley's got some lively discussion on community v individualism going on over at her place. Her posts link to a wealth of other posts which, if I let myself, and I can't, could lead to an entire day of cruising around the neighborhoods talking to folks sitting out on their virtual porch stoops.
As I understand it, Shelley doesn't feel that community is the most important part of what we're doing here. She does not believe that we wouldn't be here as individuals if not for the communities we bounce around in first and foremost. Shelley, tell me if any of that's wrong. What I'm sure of is that Shelley values her individuality first and foremost, and doesn't see herself attached initially at the community level. If anyone out here is an individual, it's Shelley, and that's a bet.
In my mind, the whole debate, however, is a catch 22. I hate those. You could spend many years stroking key after key wondering if you post something great and no one is there to read it, did you really post at all? Is it Individual first? Community first? Are they so tightly interdependent that you can't tell? It's obvious to me that the duality here is what is puzzling to people. Yes one can be both and neither at the same time. Yes we can be all and none at the same time. Actually, that place of duality is where you find "you" and we find "us." Welcome to the net. Welcome to hyperlinks.
That there's a debate at all seems almost ironic. Community gives rise to debate and resolution, no? And if not for individuals there wouldn't be more than one side to any issue, no? So, where do we go with this?
What did bug me about this round of discussion was the light in which Shelley casts "cluetrainers," setting up some pre-defined borders around people who share a passion about a particular book/idea/philosophy. In framing them as drones in some lockstep march to the cluetrain drum, she risks stripping these folks of their individuality, which is what she values so highly in herself.
More on this.
First, and you heard it here first, there is no "cluetrain community." Cluetrain = four voices that converged in one place discussing something fundamentally important, left the place and ideas for others to take and use as they saw fit, and we all moved forward in time. These men, the authors, also continued to live forward. Nothing ended with cluetrain. For many of us, cluetrain was and remains an important stop along the way of our understanding how the net and business can and can't get along.
I don't think the Cluetrain authors themselves represent a single community, any more than any of our individual blogs do. Their voices, their perspectives, their lenses differ:
Doc: Markets are Conversations. Get Clued. World of Ends.
Chris: Bottom up, not top down. Micromarkets. The solution is poetry.
David: Management Doesn't Get It. Small Pieces Loosely Joined. Ends and pieces and linkage.
Rick: _____________________
The voices that gave rise to cluetrain share a common love for the net, understanding that it has and is changing human beings and businesses, and that institutions like government, corporations, etc. can't stop it. Traditional power structures don't wield the same kind of power here. Is that belief alone the basis for community? Yes and no.
Personally, I travel in and out of a lot of communities, many completely unrelated, and I have friends in all of those places. I have war blogger blog friends, peace blogger blog friends, cluetrain blog friends, Harvard blog friends, Holistic blog friends, feminist blog friends, pro-life blog friends. I learn something as I weave my way in and out of all of these communities.
When either your staunch individualism or narrow community participation risks isolationism, then something's wrong.
Other than that, it's all open road folks.
Alright. I'm rambling. Too much to do. I have to run now.
Besides, I forgot to put my copy of Cluetrain in the southern most corner of my garage, like I do at 10:00 every morning, so that I can do a rain dance on pages 4-33 and wait for the mothership.
why she never comes?
