Another word on this matter of romanticizing the "community." To the list of "divides" that now includes the "digital divide" we might add the "ethnic divide," the "religious divide," and a larger list that embraces these that might be called the "cultural divide."
In Iraq, for example, to take an obvious case, who represents the "community," and speaks for it: those who voted in the recent election or those who want to kill them for doing so? And it is not clear--to me, at least--that if we had a thousand telecenters in Iraq that the other divides would shrink. None of this should limit our efforts to shrink the digital divide. But it might limit our claims for what computers and communication can do about the other divides. Steve Eskow [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Taran Rampersad Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 6:20 PM Cc: The Digital Divide Network discussion group Subject: Re: [DDN] Digital Divide Dr. Steve Eskow wrote: >A small piece of the exchange between Kris Dev and Taran Rampersad: > >Kris Dev wrote: > > > >>Dear all, >> >>My observations are simple and straight. >> >>The community knows what they need. >> >>And Taran began his answer this way: >> >> > ><<To an extent, I believe that this is true.>> > >If we are to make a difference, it is important that we be careful with this >word "community." It is a word that conjures up images of people who care >about each other and understand what they need and can make a difference in >their lives if they are allowed to speak and are heard and their voices and >needs respected. > >To an extent, as Taran says, this is true. > >To a certain extent, the statement is also false.. > > Absolutely correct, and I snipped the stuff I agreed with (all of it), but for clarification I just wanted to add when something is 'true to an extent', implicitly it is 'false to an extent'. The tough part in that is that there are are no clear differences. But the cool part is that there is so much to learn about... everything :-) -- Taran Rampersad Presently in: Panama City, Panama [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.knowprose.com http://www.easylum.net http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/Taran "Criticize by creating." — Michelangelo _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
