25/02/2005

E-bomb??

My beloved NZZ (the online edition of which may soon join the WSJ in its online insignificance because articles are available just for the day) has two articles on blogs, one of them is a survey of thematic blogs available in German.

The other is a strange, somewhat reactionary comment on bloggers and other ambivalent electro-phenomena (sic!). Predictably, it deals with the recent media impact that blogs have had: "In the impenetrable universe of atomised internet subjects, feather-light e-communication may become a massive bomb that can shake giants. Lightening fast IT remain ambivalent in their effect - they are conducive to destabilise authoritarian regimes, but in liberal states, they may destabilise reliable fixed points. Information giants give birth to knowledge dwarfs. Enlightenment and obscurantism are siblings of modernity." Hmm, that's all very well, but to me it seems that some vested interest in staying a reliable fixed point could be at stake here. At any rate, bemoaning contemporary phenomena of the electric kind won't do much good unless accompanied by convincing action.

Phenomenologically yours ...

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