The Breaking Time

Of revolts and social media

By this point Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker piece Small Change, with its bound-to-be provocative subtitle Why the revolution will not be tweeted has gotten plenty of the desired attention. Much of it ironically (and no doubt intentionally) on Twitter itself.

Gladwell jumps around from topic to topic to build a case, essentially that "social media can't provide what social change has always required;" that new media is no replacement for old-style organization and activism. In fact, he goes further, attempting to debunk the so-called Twitter Revolutions (in Moldavia and Iran) and assert that the medium is in fact, not inherently revolutionary. The crux goes something like this:

Shirky considers this model of activism an upgrade. But it is simply a form of organizing which favors the weak-tie connections that give us access to information over the strong-tie connections that help us persevere in the face of danger. It shifts our energies from organizations that promote strategic and disciplined activity and toward those which promote resilience and adaptability. It makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact. The instruments of social media are well suited to making the existing social order more efficient. They are not a natural enemy of the status quo. If you are of the opinion that all the world needs is a little buffing around the edges, this should not trouble you. But if you think that there are still lunch counters out there that need integrating it ought to give you pause.

Many of the responses, as one might guess, have been critical, sometimes scathingly so.

Honestly, I think both Gladwell's view and that of the "slacktivism" (not a term I like, but it'll do) advocates could use a strong dose of reality. Both dismiss too readily in favor of their own already-decided-upon stories (new media has changed everything/no, it's damaging something good that was already there). There is a lot ignored in online activism and several of Gladwell's critiques are absolutely on point, but there are some real new, useful tools here, and his piece does ignore some real uses.

More, below the cut.

The world is not a chessboard

 

I like The Atlantic Monthly, I really do. They generally provide excellent in-depth reporting, while Andrew Sullivan and Ta-Nehisi Coates are some of the better bloggers out there. Hell, I can even stomach Christopher Hitchens when he's sticking to literary criticism

These positive traits usually manage to overcome some of the dumber center-right screeds the magazine is prone to publishing, or the asides like "at my elite English boarding school" that their lesser lights are prone to throwing in, just to remind you of the upper-class blinders that lead to many of The Atlantic's worst moments.

 

Their annual Big Ideas issue has a lot of innovative stuff in it, but How Iran could save the Middle East, a particularly noxious piece from Jeffrey Goldberg, should be dead on arrival. 

 

In short, Goldberg's proposal is that Iran could save the Middle East by being the next bogeyman, because fear of it might drive Sunnis, Israel and the United States together against a common foe. That's unlikely, sure, but it's exactly the sort of "grand" idea clueless political hacks could do a lot of damage by embracing. Remember "they'll welcome us as liberators?" Hell, remember Mossadegh? 

 

Furthermore, recent events in Iran have put the lie to it. Look at the above picture and the crowds that have come out asking for democracy and better relations with the world. These are the big enemy? That's who we're supposed to re-align the Middle East to fight? Bullshit.

 

Much disaster has been caused over the years, especially in the realm of foreign policy, by viewing the world as a chessboard: with monolithic blocks of nations and peoples that can be moved around to some greater goal that never seems to arrive. When the countries crack open, when they inevitably prove to be not monolithic at all, but complicated and dynamic, bristling with corners and contradictions, the august sages get to throw up their hands, write a mea culpa and hit the lecture circuit. Pundits will nod gravely, then praise them for their humility and gravitas. 

 

It's sickening to count the number of democratic movements crushed over the years because they happened to fall on the wrong side of some legacy-hound's power calculus.

 

Most of what happens along the way is blood, death and ash, savaging innocents because they're assumed to have no identity besides wherever their government might stand at the moment. 

 

Stupid, delusional and disastrous. You want a big idea? Let's cut this shit out. Let's find ways to interact with the world that don't blow up in our faces every few years. And let's start with the Middle East.