SocialClass
Well, when I first started messing with e-mail, I was thinking
that the e-world was the great equalizer. But maybe it will adapt to fit
the prevailing class and caste system we have in this country and in other
countries.
The idea of information "haves" and "have nots" is a hot topic
with VP Gore and many others.
Email flattens out distinctions based on age, looks, and sometimes
sex. It rattles social convention and hierarchies
for both good and ill....mostly good I suppose. Such social qualities seem
to be what gives email its particular niche.
There's a premise that everyone's words are equally valuable,
that our ideas should be evaluated on their own strength and not by the
educational background, degrees, or social status
of the speaker. Emailers can escape unwanted roles typically ascribed to
them by virtue of race, manner of speech, appearance, and sometimes sex (if
left unclear).
I've also felt that expertise is sometimes discounted in the
'net's rush toward democracy. . . [I]n net domains that _do_ have bonafide
experts, participants wander aimlessly around the flat playing field; old
ground is retread when neither experience nor formal training are valued
as signposts. The medium promotes iconoclasm and heresy for its own sake,
which in my "old age" no longer seems as inherently wonderful as it once
did...
Generally, I think that the incredible specialization made possible
by the listserv technology serves social stratification better than it does
democratic interaction, however, that is not a necessary result. If even
some people are willing to put in the effort, the net can be a force for
the kind of intergroup communication that permits ideas to be truly tested
in the laboratory of human experience.
(You see, I don't just drop names, I grind them into the
carpet!)
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