06-09-2018, 07:12 PM
(06-08-2018, 05:26 PM)sbarrera Wrote: I will now post my look at one of the items on the list of "what to look for in the generations" that started this thread. This is how Millennials enforce a code of good conduct - ie, how they are recreating an expectation for social norms.
http://stevebarrera.com/millennials-as-c...ial-media/
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I recently posted a list of patterns to look for among the living generations in the current social era, based on Strauss & Howe generational theory. I wanted to take a closer look at some of the items on that list in a series of posts, and I’ll start with one under that most talked about of generations – the Millennials.
The item in particular is the second one in the Crisis era box – “look for the Millennial generation to enforce, among peers, a code of good conduct.” You can see this happening in that ubiquitous phenomenon that is defining the times – social media.
If they are to enforce a good code of conduct, then it will not have been they who formulated it. A Civic generation without the influence of older generations could act much like the leaders of the French Revolution -- seeing demons to expunge from society... the corrupt, the old-fashioned, the parasitical, and those of suspect loyalty. That is not to say that the ancien regime deserved to continue.
Quote:The rise of social media is part of the story of the maturation of the Internet, which first came into the public eye at a time when computer networks were the province of a small minority of socially outcast nerds. As adoption grew through the “you’ve got mail” era and into the dawn of today’s tech giants like Amazon and Google, going online became more and more mainstream.
I also notice the expansion of the computer from a means of command-and-control in businesses (when they did calculation and data-storage) into tools for far more -- like creative activity, education. and entertainment. By now when we have data it has typically gone through a computer, so "computer data" is redundant. Paradoxically the computer has given through its modernity more access to, of all things, antiquity.
Quote:Then, just around the start of the Crisis in 2008, came a new kind of computer that made being online essentially effortless – the smartphone. With it came an explosion of participation on Internet sites designed to promote social networking and interaction. Now, ten years later, what we call social media platforms dominate as a source of information and news.
Miniaturization! I have several reader devices (no smart-phone) yet -- I am astonished that smart-phones aren't built into everything by now. I have dedicated one to use as an input for music into my stereo system. It sits in a cigar box that I effectively use for storage and holding it up. Something of such general use getting a very limited range of use? No. The musical range is from the late-medieval era to about thirty years ago. You can guess what genre of music that is.
OK, Palestrina is not Shostakovich.
Quote:The term “media” refers to an era’s primary means of mass communication. Adding the qualifier “social” suggests that a socializing role has been added to that of communicating, and perhaps that control of mass communication has been transferred from media elites (who are now mistrusted) to society at large.
But it is also a means of individual communication and (thank you, YouTube!) choice.
Quote:The socializing role is evident in the familiar features of promoting posts (“liking” and “sharing”). Popular opinions rise to the top of feeds and are seen by the most viewers. Unpopular opinions are quashed. The consensus is reinforced through the use of signal-boosting hashtags like #metoo.
There is a fault: cranky ideas often get an undeserved life.
Quote:Another form of enforcement involves calling out bad behavior. A post demonstrates a transgression of social mores, which may, unfortunately for the transgressor, be taken out of context. Then a blast of comments shames the person. In extreme cases, the person may be identified in real life – called “doxxing” – which can be ruinous.
We need some ethical consensus. I am not going to out someone for being homosexual unless that person is ferociously anti-homosexual. But let us remember that there is much bad behavior on the Internet. People thought that they could use it for accessing lewd images of children and even helpless children themselves through the Internet. I figure that such is being crushed.
People who steal data for horrible uses are the virtual equivalents of burglars. In time they will be treated as such.
Quote:Perhaps the exemplary case in point is the store owner who posts an anti-gay sign, and then finds his or her business boycotted after a picture of the sign goes viral on social media. But how far might the phenomenon go? Blogger John Robb speculates about “weaponized social networks” and imagines their full potenital.
Discrimination of any kind unless it targets people intent on doing bad things (like theft) is not only cruel, but stupid. If I own the bakery and I have a born-again employee who refuses to frost the words "Congratulations Adam and Steve" or install a same-sex statuette, then I will insist that that employee do as much as does not offend the sensibility of that employee (basically go as far as one can go on a cake for some other purpose). But I have my limits -- no copyright or trademark violations, no praise of crime or child abuse, no pornography, and no threats or abuse. Obviously I would not make a cake that says "Pay up or die!"
Quote:As for the people being in charge of mass communication now, the “democratization of the media” if you will – that has proven fraught with challenges. Social networks are vulnerable to infiltration, and social engineering has swayed elections. Social media sharing makes the dissemination of false information much too easy, and so the term “fake news” has come into the zeitgeist.
Democratization? No -- it is the recognition of individuality as used to be impossible in the age of mass production and mass communication. It's what still has the mass characteristics (including advertising and partisan politics that have an ethos of command with an attempt to appear as persuasion) that causes trouble.
The mass society, a reflection of what goes with a certain stage of industrialization, that makes possible a Hitler, a Stalin, a Mao, or a Saddam Hussein. Yes, Donald Trump has resuscitated this mode of mass communication to multitudes who see nothing wrong with it. Others? Those who trivialized the effect still can turn on it by individualizing a coherent message.
So suppose that one is running for office against Donald Trump in a rural area in which farming and ranching form the core of the economy. So if things go awry (low commodity prices and high input prices, the latter especially fuel) you can address this.
The cure for fake news is real news... the cold, unvarnished truth. That's one way to deal with liars, fools, and fanatics.
Quote:There is also the question of whose consensus is being enforced, as there are competing “red-state” and “blue-state” networks, each attempting to persuade us with their values-promoting memes. What values prevail will be evident in time. And though all of the living generations are participating in this social evolution, ultimately it will be the rising Millennial generation that defines what conduct is considered correct.
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The Last Act of this Crisis era will not be the consolidation of the Trump agenda.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.