theo|digital

First, the rhetoric on this one has me mad.  One commentator calls the award “wicked and ignorant.”  She asserts that the award is a “great and prestigious award given by liberals to liberals. NCNA–no conservatives need apply. This is the way of the world, and so what? Life isn’t for prizes.”

Good thing this is an Op-Ed and not on the news page–it wouldn’t pass fact check.  Sure, it’s okay if she doesn’t like Al Gore’s prize.  And we wonder too why Reagan never got awarded one.  But she doesn’t mention that many of the candidates are relatively neutral in political affiliation (2006 – an economist  2004 – a zoologist ), but that recipients that are political in modern decades include iconic Republican Henry Kissinger and Conservative Party David Trimble (UK) in 1998.

More importantly:

Beyond the incivility and blithe assumptions of either corruption or idiocy (the ad hominem is always unbecoming), there is a intensely forest-for-the-trees like understanding that is missing from many of the critics.  Maybe we can understand what it is by watching the short interview of Committee Member Geir Lundestad explain the award:

Interview about the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize (8 minutes)

Lundested official’s official Nobel statement includes the following:

“he has produced a new global climate”
“changing the international climate IS a concrete achievement” (emphasis his)
“we have been trying to support these ideals for 118 years”

On the objection that Obama’s award is premature:

“we have gone over these arguments… they are very obvious.” … “there are the obvious counter-arguments” “but he presents this wonderful agenda and we feel we should support him.” ” We have been over these arguments many many times, obviously”

The reality is that discourse, covenant, promise, words with intent… *are* real action. Let’s please stop saying things like “just words.” Words are real action. We believe this daily in big and small things: every time we say a wedding vow or give a hug or sign a form to volunteer at a school. In systems of nations and families and trade networks, speech-acts have a multiplying real effect. The Nobel committee understands this.

What they might have missed is that there is a portion of the public that artificially separates “words” and “action.” They’re missing it.

The surprise at the award is entirely justified. It makes sense that some would be concerned. (Nicholas Kristof represents). Many (but not all) of the awards in the past seem to be given more as “lifetime achievement awards.” But as the committee has explained, this is was not Nobel’s intent for the prize. And I hope maybe their action (which, case in point: was ‘no more’ than words), helps us unite these ideas of communication and action in more thoughtful light.

A text, then, is a communicative act with matter (propositional content) and energy (illocutionary force). … It is important to acknowledge that authors may intend to communicate complex, multilayered intentions.

There is an instructive dialogue in the opening pages of The Hobbit. The scene is Gandalf’s first visit to Bilbo Baggins:

“Good morning!” said Bilbo, and he meant it…

“What do you mean?” he [Gandalf] said. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”

“All of them at once, ” said Bilbo. And a very fine morning for a pipe of tabacco out of doors, into the bargain.”

A bit later Biblo uses the same locutionary act [Chris:  words] with a very different illocutionary intent [Chris:  purpose]:

“Good morning! We don’t want any adventures here, thank you!”

“What a lot of things you do use Good morning for!” said Gandalf. “Now you means that you want to get rid of me, and that it won’t be good till I move off.”

I love it.  From Vanhoozer’s First Theology: God, Scripture and Hermeneutics, 178

This is funny to me at this point, and definitely almost counts a nerd joke in the stuff I’m studying.  Two things that might help it be better  1)  Marshall McLuhan, one of the founders of media ecology, died in 1980, and 2)  He released a book in 1967 The Medium is the Massage which was a play on his quote, “the medium is the message” that was laid out in a print photo collage that foreshadowed internet media…

The remix is by Jamie O’Neil, who seems to have some great forthcoming work on the remix as epistemology, which I think I’ll want to read for my thesis. This is one of the categories I haven’t thought as much on… trying to stay closer to “information” than “media” – though after convergence, I don’t know who I’m kidding, but I gotta stay sane somehow.

Today, Obama held a townhall meeting in Strasbourg, France. He doing his first European tour after attending the G-20 summit in London. I notice that some of this remarks sound like somebody has been paying attention to communication and culture theory:

…
You’ve served as a center of industry and commerce, a seat of government and education, where Goethe studied and Pasteur taught, and Gutenberg imagined his printing press.

So it’s fitting, because we find ourselves at a crossroads as well, all of us, for we’ve arrived at a moment where each nation and every citizen must choose at last how we respond to a world that has grown smaller and more connected than at any time in its existence.

You know, we’ve known — we’ve known for a long time that the revolutions in communications and technology that took place in the 20th century would help hold out enormous promise for the 21st century, the promise of broader prosperity and mobility, of new breakthroughs and discoveries that could help us lead richer and fuller lives. But the same forces that have brought us closer together have also given rise to new dangers that threaten to tear our world apart, dangers that cannot be contained by the nearest border or the furthest ocean.

Full transcript here.

In my last post on Shane Hipps, I meant to ask a couple more questions:

1. Hipps mentioned that a Second Life is in some way an extension of televangelism, and says “How you incarnate the gospel ina dis-incarnate setting? I don’t know how to do it.” People will know that I have a strong sense of agreement with part of what is being said here… I typically say “A relational gospel is best communicated relationally.”

My question for Hipps: doesn’t the ability for interactivity dramatically distinguish Second Life from TV or radio that rely on a one-way broadcast mode of communication? In this sense, TV is more like Power Point?

2. Hipps says that the idea of a “shared imagination of the future” is easy to find online, because you’ll automatically seek out those who think like you do. A real community has to do more real work to forge this, it seems like he’d say.

My question for Hipps: isn’t this a feature of affinity-based groups of any kind? For instance, junior high youth group? Mom’s with toddlers groups? Chess clubs? The local Democratic party office? People have chosen to associate with people that think similarly to themselves for much longer than online communities have existed. Sure, the School House Rock Fan Club can now have members in both Chicago and Australia. But aren’t these like-minded groups are just extensions of human behavior since specialization (accelerated by industrialization and mass literacy)?

Note instead groups that hold together disparate opinions or mirror real life communities, like the Shaw neighborhood of Washington DC where my sister and brother-in-law (http://justindc.vox.com/) and their church connect with a highly diverse neighborhood that struggles forward together. What do these add to our conversation?

Shane Hipps , Mennnonite pastor, recently commented on how “dangerous” it is to refer to “virtual community” as real community (watch the video in my last post ).  He had four points real Christian community that I think are helpful starting points for discussion, but perhaps not as dismissible as they appear.

Hipps’ four factors for meaningful community:

1. Shared history (identity and belonging)
2. Permanence (necessary for the shared history)
3. Proximity
4. Shared imagination of the future

Hipps says that virtual community captures the fourth more easily than “true” community, but “utterly leaves out” the other three.  But would Marshall McLuhan , Hipps key thought mentor, agree?

Extensions of humanity.  Basic to McLuhan’s thought is the idea the technologies extend natural human functions.  For instance, humans have legs which let them move from one place to another.  The technology of the wheel extended and enhanced that function… suddenly we can do a human thing on a larger scale.  Right?  An axe extends an arm, telephone extends voice, etc.

From this starting point, thought about technologies like an IM chat or Facebook should see certain uniquely human functions like conversation and relationship extended and expanded, not replaced.  (Walter Ong reminds us that invention of the alphabet did not replace the spoken word, the printed book hardly replaced teaching…  new technologies in communication augment, not replace)

Gotta look at the whole system.  A technology can’t be evaluated on its own, but in relationship to the system of human perceptions.  Specifically, the ratio of human senses is altered by extending technologies.  And it’s not the obvious one.  For instance the effect of radio was to alter… the visual sense.  The effect of the photo is auditory.

Before we can make theological judgments on a technology, we need to think more widely.  Rare is the person that lives only “online” (dark room, glowing screen, empty take-out boxes, no verbal interaction in weeks, etc).  Instead, what is the effect of our online interactions on our physical interactions (and vice versa).

Is proximity physical?  Hipps assumes that proximity is physical and that online interaction breaks the proximity.  But McLuhan assumes that while industrialization created explosion, homogeneity, and isolation (think the suburbs), electronic technology has an imploding, contracting energy effect.  ”Everybody in the world has to live in the utmost proximity created by our electronic involvement in one another’s lives…” he writes (Understanding Media, p54).  Further, he tantalizingly forces us to examine our definition of proximity:

It begins to become evident that “touch” is not skin but the interplay of the senses, and “keeping in touch” or “getting in touch” is a matter of a fruitful meeting of the senses, of sight translated into sound and sound into movement and taste and smell.

Theologically I’m with Hipps on the importance of the Incarnation, and I think this has implications on physicality.  This is a whole ‘nother post… but I’d suggest that “presence” is significantly more than physical (something we call upon every time we speak on sacramental theology), and that online technologies are not inherently gnostic.

Amputation and Numbness.  McLuhan reminds us that a primary effect of new technologies extending human communication function is a sense of over-stimulus and then “numbness.”  We become both hyper-aware of the technology (like in 1998 when we all were talking about going to “do our e-mail”), but also oblivious to its sense-altering effects (an exception McLuhan notes is some artists, who write histories of the future).  But an important feature of this is that we can’t immediately see the effect of new technologies… in fact, we don’t tend to see them until the next technology arrives, allowing us to look back.

From this perspective, it almost seems silly (pardon the strength) to speak emphatically about media effects on community.  Especially items like “shared history” and “permanence” can’t really be categories on technologies that have existed less than 10 years.  Google has only been a wide-spread part of our lives since 2001.  The Blogger platform I’m publishing only gathering popularity since 2004.  And Facebook?  While I was on in the “early days” when it was limited to a huge large universities, it has only become ubiquitous in the last 1.5 years.

(allow me to offer apologies again that while I’m responding to Shane Hipps video clip, I have yet to have examined his published book , which may have significantly more interaction with some of the above I’m mentioned…  I’m sure a conversation with him would be fascinating and fruitful).

Shane Hipps is a Mennonite pastor who I noticed wrote a book a couple years ago entitled The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture. I borrowed it and skimmed but never really read it, and now I’m realizing I’m gonna have to catch up, since Shane is starting to get some voice on these issues in the evangelical Christian leadership world.  I’d love to meet him and chat it up some time, since this is one my primary areas of interest.

Because so much of media ecology is simply unawareness, I had hoped another a fellow watcher of communications as culture would cultivate an imaginative view on ideas like “virtual community.” But here Shane makes it clear that he views online interaction as entertainment (“enjoy it, but don’t call it community, because it isn’t”).  This was somewhat disappointing to me (and not unusual, see my first post on this )

Scot McKnight posted a response at both Our of Ur and at Jesus Creed that asked Shane to consider the Jesus Creed community, a blog that does have a remarkable level a participation (both in volume and quality) compared to (most?) other blogs that often function as more soapbox than dialogue.

Over 40 commentors have contributed some amazing thoughts to this thread: Dan (4) points out that he doesn’t know Scot McKnight, and comes because the community is useful.  Makes sense to me.  I think utility is clearly a reason we both approach and stay in offline communities as well.  Eric (9) calls Jesus Creed a better community than any church he’s been part of in 20 years.  He cites questions and disagreement as key draws.  And these are clearly crucial in offline community as well!  Show me a community without conflict and I’ll show you “shallow.”  Chris E. notes that Scot’s experience is remarkably different than others because of his central role.  As a campus pastor at the center of a vibrant church for a number of years, I eventually realized myself that my experience was also remarkably different to those who knew only a few people in our church, or hung “near the edges.”  There really are positions and vantage points in communities that vary the experience.  Matt S. (14) sets up a thought experiment that makes me hopeful for deeper thinking on this, and Pat B (38) is wise to the net when (s?)he notes that blogs don’t have a natural format for extended conversation.

All this to say:  with not too much thought, we find a great deal of similarity between “virtual” community and “physical” community.

Next post (hopefully coming soon):  more on why I think Marshall McLuhan would argue with Shane Hipps four point analysis on virtual community.

The other day, two of my seminary buddies were talking about Facebook. We all check it regularly, me especially as a brain-break between droning academic essays.

And a the tone of the conversation turned a way that I’ve heard often from Christians as they talk about Facebook. In it’s mild form, it’s expressed an embarrassment to admit that we spend a lot of time online. “I should totally spend more time with real people, huh?” In it’s strong, dogmatic form, it emerges as a theological diatribe against “fake community” and it’s distinct threat to the real community of the Church.

I’ve heard this over and over.

While I believe this is common wisdom, especially among pastors I’ve spoken with, I think it misses the mark. There’s much more here. So I’d like to start reflecting on Facebook, using both communication media and theology as conversation partners.

The Boston Globe produced a quick series of interviews called “the end of alone.” By buddy Ty sent it to me to open the discussion.

As communion with the Sunday paper has replaced church-going [she writes in 1979], there is a tendency to forget that sermons had a one time been coupled with news about local and foreign affairs, real estate transactions, and other mundane matters. After printing, however, news gathering and circulation were handled more efficiently under lay auspices.

Such considerations might be noted when thinking about the ‘secularization’ of ‘desacralization’ of Western Christendom. For in all regions (to go beyond the 18th century for a moment), the pulpit was ultimately displace by the periodical press and dictum ‘nothing sacred’ came to characterize the journalist’s career.

She goes on to note that print culture broke the link between community and communication (we don’t often gather to hear the public speech at church or areopogus).  But “communal solidarity was diminished; vicarious participation in more distant events was also enhanced… links to larger collective units were being forged.”

Elizabeth Eisenstein still hold the definitive work the subject matter defined by her book The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (Volumes 1 and 2 in One).

I believe that this concept of a distant, primarily unknowable God is at the heart of postmodernism. The major proponents of postmodern approaches to human communication rarely contend that there is no higher power. They simply assume that such a power cannot be known intimately by human beings, since sacred texts are presumably just as prone to deconstruction as any other texts.
…
The more I study Hebrew and Christian traditions, however, the more struck I am by the ways that these monotheistic faiths incorporated deconstruction within their understanding of ultimate reality. I make no joke when I say that the account of the fall from grace in the beginning of the book of Genesis can be “read” as both an explanation and description of the cosmic disconnect between symbol and referent. From what I can tell, Adam and Eve represent the first postmodernists as a result of their alienation from God. Ashamed of their disobedience, they feared both self-revelatory and God-revelatory discourse.

Quentin Schultze, “The God-Problem in Communication Studies” Journal for Communication Research 28 (March 2005), 13-14