Comments on: The Third Mission to the West

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 04:41:00 +0000

Face,
Good points all, but especially about believing bloggers needing to be in real (as distinguished from cyber0 community. Hopefully a combination of embodied, incarnated grace & truth and cyber grace & truth will add up to a significant difference.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 01:59:00 +0000

GL, Thanks for your comment. You're right that Guinness was definitely not talking about bloggers, so your distinction is duly noted. As I mentioned, he was speaking to people in the entertainment industry who have much more influence, and are in touch with many more elites, than bloggers in general. Though our influence may not reach the elites, I would still like to encourage us to do our part in our own way by applying these ideas to ourselves and making what difference we can. I think you're probably right that the power of the blogs lies more in dissemination than creation of ideas, but I wouldn't discount this as a cultural force. Many of the dominant ideas of this culture (e.g., a naturalistic view of the world, the idea that only empirical facts--and not moral facts--are knowable, and the resulting relativism) are based on assumptions/ideas that have become commonplace and are no longer challenged. Our task as bloggers is to make the right ideas more and more commonplace as we add people into our network, change minds one at a time, inspire the creation of new blogs that reach more people, etc. At a certain point, the new ideas will become commonplace. Though there are many, changing ideas out there, a stable network of blogs could help us to focus on the ideas that matter. A network also provides a swift way to disseminate important information. As for expanding the plausibility structure, that's up to the bloggers. People with beliefs outside the network are unlikely to wander in, but bloggers don't live only in the network. First, we can (and ought to) venture out into blogs that disagree with ours, and enter into dialogue with them. Second, we have jobs and friends and contact with all sorts of people outside of our belief network. It's no small thing for the blogs to encourage robust belief such that the readers then go out into the world and continue to promote the ideas through a different medium (i.e., friendships). I haven't read Hugh Hewitt's book, Blog, but I believe he makes a case for the influence of blogs--including examples of how they have already influenced the culture. One blog by itself is certainly small potatoes--we have no reason to feel self-important in our own power. I think the exciting thing is, though, that now, we small potatoes can join together with other small potatoes and maybe make a difference together.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 14:32:00 +0000

Face,
Guinness is articulating a perspective about cultural change through networks of overlapping elites & institutions that shows at least some influence by cultural sociologist J.D. Hunter. I agree 1) that bloggers are gatekeepers “of a sort” and 2) that many are networked. But the theory of cultural change that Guinness espouses would see bloggers as useful but much lower level “knowledge workers” who are disseminating ideas from above. I.e., in this theory of elites, bloggers as bloggers are not really elites. Bloggers like Ben Witherington who are established scholars but also now have blogs are different. Bloggers as bloggers who are not bringing elite status with them…are not elites.
The elites in terms of knowledge creation (essential for culture shaping) are scholars who, in networks with other scholars, create schools of thought and institutions. I can't emphasize enough the power of institutions and the elites in them. It may be that I have not thought through blogs sufficiently to see them as a novel form of institution; my sense at this moment is that bloggers are not institutions.
Thus, in this theory of culture change by networks of overlapping elites & institutions, bloggers can aid the process of cultural change through dissemination but they are unlikely to be generating the ideas that change the world.
But Guinness' point about too many voices remains. I don't think even networked bloggers necessarily overcome it, though they may. The many voices in a network do form something of a plausibility structure (Berger), and that will help people in the network stay robust in their adherence to ideas and imbibe new “correct” ideas. But where I am less clear is how the influence spreads outside of the plausibility structure. Or, to put it another way, I'm not yet clear on how the plausibility structure is expanded to include those who previously believe differently. Unless people outside the blogger network are pulled in and read with an open disposition, I'm not sure those who don't already believe will be changed.
I'm not trying to thow water on the idea. I think Hunter's theory is brilliant and provocative and I look forward to seeing how he works through counter-arguments when he publishes his theory. I guess what I'm saying is that I am not clear about the importance of bloggers in cultural change, so I look forward to conversation from you and others to help think through this. I'll be staying tuned for your next posts on the subject.
One important book in this perspective of cultural change by networks of overlapping elites and institutions: The Sociology of Philosophies by Randall Collins.