03/17/05: Howard Rheingold speaking at SD Forum's Distinguished Speakers Series


"Toward a Literacy of Cooperation": A brief but provocative presentation

As I was telling my pal Elle last night, I'm relatively new to the technogeek world. Even though I was in high-tech marketing, the truth is when you're marketing to the cable industry...even its upstart broadband and digital video crew...you're still talking old-school. So there a whole bunch of people, buzzwords and themes that are part of the SIlicon Valley language that I've been catching up to the last couple of years. Howard Rheingold and his 'Smart Mobs' concept is just one example. never heard of him or the book until somewhat recently. In a way that's great...I can come in with a fresh perspective, and am not likely to be disappointed by jacked up expectations (since everyone seems to be a "visionary" these days.)

Rheingold seems to share certain qualities, as a presenter of ideas, with Malcom Gladwell. They both tell stories, and often discuss what could be dry, scientific matters by using more universal themes that even the non-scientist can wrap their mind around. Some have accused Gladwell, for example, of merely "re-packaging and popularizing the work of others for a mass audience." But I love his response which is: thank you. Gladwell is happy if he can be the one to bring complicated concepts to a larger audience.

Rheingold has the same skill.

He started out telling us what the Old Story was:

Biology=war
Business=war
Politics=war

And then he told us what the New Story will be:
Cooperation
Collective Action
Complex Interdependencies

Much of this is driven by the tools that are democratizing the ability to communicate information:

The Alphabet allowed the elite to communicate.
The Printing Press meant that the masses could be literate.

And I suppose the Internet means that the masses can now be more than consumers of mass communications; they can also be distributors.

And it is Rheingold's opinion that collective action is not possible without a literate population. It is also his opinion that "it is better to know more, than to not."

This raised a big question for me. Rheingold had a rather short Q&A period, so I had to approach him afterwards to ask it: Rheingold's contention is that collective action requires literacy, and that, essentially, the more you know the better, and the more efficient collective action can be. My observation, however, is that in the last decade or even more...it is those who are spurred to collective action based on faith, not rationality, that have had the most successes. Fanatic sects of most world religions are managing to have huge impact. The radical right in the US has managed to flex their political muscles. As science advances, the masses belief in it seems to wane: you can see it in the creationism over evolution argument right here.

Rheingold talked about medical advances, and how people used to attribute disease to sin, foreigners or magic, but now we know diseases results from bacteria or viruses etc. But aren't we, as a general population, still finding ways to attribute diseases to sin (e.g. AIDS) or foreigners (e.g. the hysteria over a variety of Asian flus)?

And even as one audience member was asking whether man's propensity to "destroy the commons" would be alleviated as our life spans stretch out (because we would be more likely to see the results of our actions) I could not help thinking: that argument holds no water with those who believe, as our President does, that the Rapture is coming and will take him away like Calgon.

So, my question was "why"? And Rheingold, not claiming to be God, couldn't really provide a "why." But his response was that, while he agreed with me that those were observable phenomena, it was his personal belief that increased knowledge would benefit us. And that technologies can help foster cooperation and sharing...enabling communication, group forming, and the kind of self-interest that brings better results for all.

So, in a way, his presentation was less a report-out on social phenomena, and more an evangelistic reach-out to promote new kinds of cooperation that don't necessarily exist yet.

As he says: why assume that humans have stopped evolving?

Some other interesting points:
-It seems at first that humans have a "universal sense of fairness." But the truth is that that sense of fairness is directly related to one's living conditions.
-People enjoy punishing cheaters...and punishing those who fail to punish cheaters!
-Today specialization is the norm, but multi-disciplinarian thinking is needed.

Definitely food for thought. Definitely makes me want to read his book, Smart Mobs.

Posted: Sat - March 19, 2005 at 09:23 AM       EmailFeedback

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