FYI. A friend who just recently joined the Brin-l, sent me this article on Friday.
http://techcentralstation.com/020604A.html There is reference in this article to a David Brin Vs. Neal Stephenson debate over Accountability vs. Secrecy (guess what side Brin took. Can anyone provide details of this debate... Anyone? ) I found this article exciting to read, as it essentially makes similar points Brin made in his Keynote speech to the Libertarian Party. The article suggests that there is a big shift coming which clouds what it means to be right or left, summarizing it as a struggle between Libertarians and Communitarians (the first reference I have seen to Communitarians as a political party.) We have also had discussions about the Political compass and how it does not seem to be accurate anymore. For instance, Politically, I align with John G. often, yet other times I side with The Fool's political position. But in the same day, I could be outraged by either for some position they may take. It seems strange how there can be so many diametric conflicts between people, when one tries to assign a "Left" or "Right" value to actions or issues. There is a clear need to attempt to redefine the political compass to be more meaningful in today's world. This author at least takes a stab at it... To quote from the Article: "Emergent "Parties" Perhaps now we can define the orientation of the new emergent "parties": Libertarian vs. Communitarian Freedom vs. Virtue Economic inclusiveness vs. Preservation of non-economic values Globalist/Localist vs. Nationalist Evolution vs. Ecology Free market capitalism vs. "Stakeholder" capitalism Open communication vs. Responsible gatekeeping Privacy vs. Accountability Gender-blindness vs. Sexual equality-in-difference Some of these categories probably require a gloss. The libertarian party in this schema -- not necessarily identical to the actual Libertarian Party -- believes that members of a free population will be disciplined by the consequences of their free acts and the exigencies of the market, so that they will acquire virtue as a by-product of their education by experience. Cultural and moral institutions will arise spontaneously to cope with the demand, without help from the state. The "nanny" state creates a moral peon class that never has the opportunity to develop virtue and the higher fruits of human life. The nature of virtue itself is one of the issues that is to be decided by the free process of the marketplace of ideas, and nobody's traditional value system should be forced on anyone else; victimless crimes, such as drug use, are not really crimes at all. For libertarians, freedom is the prerequisite for virtue. Communitarians, on the other hand, believe that a free democracy cannot function, however excellent its constitution, without a virtuous population that is capable of judging objectively, voting responsibly, taking into account the needs of the whole community, and serving the public if called upon. Even markets depend, they say, upon accumulated cultural/moral capital. Thus a society (not necessarily the state) should preempt the free market and provide the basic security from want and illness that is the ground of virtue. It should protect the public from its own addictions. And it should encourage an education in values and civics that can counteract both the individualistic selfish tendencies of the free marketplace and the divisiveness of ethnic differences. For communitarians, virtue precedes freedom. " End Quote To use Brin's Questionnaire section "Problem Solving Methods" he makes a similar comparison as the author above, calling the Libertarian position "right-handed" and the communitarian "left-handed". I can't help but to think that the author was strongly influenced by Brin while writing this essay. He ends the essay with a statement that the democratic party is as risk of collapsing. He quotes ... "The recent collapse of the Dean campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination is a case in point: his only platform, as the delegates perceived, was to be against things. " Man, that sounds so true. He garnered more support in the rambunctious audience of internet activists, without realizing that this same audience is ripe with self-righteous antagonism toward authority. This list reflects a general antagonism against the President, his policies, and especially his war (as an example). But to the middle-class delegates of the Midwest, those same activists are perceived as youthful, rebellious, music stealing, web site hijackin' kooks, with limited values, brainwashed by the toxic ocean of Internet-borne ideas.... Nerd From Hell "All your Brain are belong to us!" _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
