Question Mark and the Mysterians

The assignment for this week is to select a passage from one of the four articles we read this week, but I think I may end up drawing on Bell's article to supplement my argument against a passage from "Against Virtual Community." First off, I'll say that there are some issues that are brought up in the article that I don't completely disagree with, but as far as the main thrust of the article goes, I have to disagree with his assessment of virtual communities.

The portion of the article I want to look at is a few pages long, but I think I distill this. In a series of paragraphs from pages 230 and 231, Robins basically attempts to invalidate or argue against the idea of virtual communities (or "virtual culture") by positioning virtual communities not as spaces for meaningful intentional interaction or an effort to truly make the world smaller, but as nothing more than common places of escape in which individuals are trying to get away from dealing with the other. While Robins does not say that a community requires engagement with the other, he certainly uses the passage(s) from page 230 and 231 to cast doubt on the validity of virtual communities and the "virtual communitarians'" espoused goal of removing or limiting the impact of physical space in one-to-one or one-to-many, interactions with (each) other. The idea of "defeating" space is questioned and it is argued that physical/geographical space may be "gone" in one direction, but has grown in the other by separating from the real world. For example, one might be conceptually closer to a group on the other side of the world, but one's physical neighbor is further away than ever before.

His assessment of avoiding the other is fine; I completely see where he is coming from. As Bell ("Webs as Pegs") notes, people in virtual communities tend to self-select their communities and engage with people who share interests with them. It makes sense, kids do this in elementary through high school and we continue to do it in college by joining certain clubs or selecting majors that suit our preferences, and this, ideally, puts us in a physical world of like minded individuals. It is not as if in the physical world we MUST engage with everyone. This is where I start to diverge with Robins and his assessment. The idea that distance related to physical space is growing with increased closeness to virtual space is flawed. I argue that the space between my neighbor and I is vast no matter what if we don't share common interests. We can talk about this or that, but if we don't really share interests or get along, then the distance with/in the physical world is still present and practically insurmountable. Am I close to my neighbor and in the same community? I suppose. However, if I am not actively a part of that community what good is it? How is "escaping" that space and "retreating" to a virtual community lessening my connection with the physical when the connection is already superficial or even tenuous? Whether I am in the virtual community or not, my level of closeness with the physical world is not necessarily affected. I propose that virtual communities and space potentially afford an opportunity to interact and possibly uncover new unexplored links between an individual and physical world. This strengthened bond may not be created without exploring virtual communities. Even if one goes into virtual space to escape and simply avoid the other, again, it does not change the relationship to the physical world. I would argue that someone in that situation has already disengaged from that physical community and that space is lost either way. So, virtual communities in and of themselves aren't these home wreckers of physical relationships, but just another place to explore either good or bad.

I suppose one could keep pushing this out further and reach a point where they say "Increased time in virtual spaces causes a withdrawal from physical space in one generation and that filters down to the next and so on until we're all in these virtual "pods" and we don't interact with our physical communities." Ok, but how does that change society? I can't say, but I don't think it leads to the collapse of the world because our interactions have shifted from context A to context B. Will it be different? Of course. However, I'm certain that humanity and global societies will successfully adapt to the shift like generations before have dealt with writing, urbanization, the phone, etc.

[Edit: So, I added some more stuff after the jump, but it is basically the same as above just worded differently and using a different context... And I ramble on about Amish people and rain.]



BONUS THOUGHTS!!!!!: When I woke up this morning (1/30) I saw The Cybercultures Reader sitting on my desk and I started thinking about the topic for this (Week 3) week's blog post again and felt that my neighbor comparison was kind of weak because it was on such a small scale. That led me to think about belief systems as technologies. This isn't a wholly fair or appropriate comparison for a number of reasons on both sides, but I feel like it applies here.

If we look at mainstream society as one system (virtual communities) and societies like the Amish (physical communities) as another, we might be able to more clearly see how this process has occurred throughout the years without the advent cyberspace or even high-tech products and what it has done to the "distance" between one world and another. We could even make this comparison with political groups, secession movements, etc, but I'm going with this comparison since there is a certain level of intersection with technology.

This might be a little off considering I haven't dealt with any strict Amish directly, but I think the gist works for the purposes of this post. For the sake of argument, I'm going to look at the Amish/external world split broadly and skip over the nuances of core beliefs, exceptions in the society, etc.

The common perception of Amish is that they don't use modern technology and avoid interaction with people who may not share or may even interfere with their beliefs/society. This isn't something that came about because of virtual communities, this rose out of a (presumably) tightly knit eighteenth century (?) physical/real world community that wanted to "escape" from a world they disagreed with. This wasn't originally decided on technological grounds, but social/religious grounds and this created a chasm between the Amish and the "mainstream." I'm not trying to equate virtual communities with religious communities, but I don't see a huge difference in how far they're distanced from the "real world," outside of the medium.

I would argue that the Amish are not practically any closer or further away from the mainstream today than 300 years ago (I'm sure that there are exceptions, but I'm talking in generalizations here). And the same holds true for those who are part of the mainstream and opt to engage in virtual communities rather than physical ones. The divide isn't necessarily about removing oneself from one place into another, but finding a conceptual or ideological space that makes sense.

Assuming we want to stay dry, we don't sit in the rain and get soaked if dry shelter is available. So, why would someone stay in a "void" of interaction if there was no reasonable solution in space A, but there was one in space B? In the rain example, you're getting out of the rain, but does that enhance your disdain for getting cold and soaking wet? You might learn to deal with being cold and wet all the time, but that doesn't make the experience better, just normal. As noted previously, the distance/removal from physical space practically exists even if the "person" is still in the space. Interacting in virtual communities affords an outlet, it doesn't add greater distance in any dimension. It adds closeness in at least one arena, but this doesn't come at the detriment of the other (dimensionally and culturally).