I’m responding to this post over at the Internet Monk.  My thoughts got long-winded so I went the trackback route.

Dr. Carson brings up some good points.  The dearth of trivial information on the ‘net is staggering – as is the problem that in a democratic medium EVERYONE can post their opinion on their own site without it getting modded into oblivion.

I do wonder if the whole porn thing is just a smoke-screen.  People who bring it up tend to be suffering from other issues like a lack of real community and/or friends with whom they can be genuinely open.  It *is* a problem, but it’s a symptom, not the disease.

The whole “the speed of the internet leads to a lack of reflection” idea shows Dr. Carson’s age.  The recent presidential election revealed the need for MORE reflection – and the person who picked up on the instantaneous nature of information dissemination was the one who carried the day.  He appeared thoughtful and reflective, whereas the campaigns that believed they could dole out information or obfuscate stories (Hillary in Bosnia, *cough*) got nailed on it.  People in public circles now have to be thinking about how they will be perceived more than ever – and the speed of the Internet is what’s leading to the transition.  Dr. Carson doesn’t seem to quite grasp that yet.

The REAL problem isn’t this whole “Whaaa, whaaa, people don’t read anymore” smokescreen.  People haven’t read for YEARS (Did anyone read Amusing Ourselves to Death?), the Internet isn’t the cause of that – nor it is accelerating that problem.  People have lost their fascination with story because we became enamored with “fact,” and then delved into trivial amusements to take the edge of that sterility.  Recent developments in our cultural psyche show me that genuine story-telling might be making a comeback – and if that happens there might be hope for the written word yet (hopefully not on the DRM’d kindle).  So what do I think is the REAL problem with the Internet?  Mob Mentality – look at the brew-ha-ha over Rick Warren’s place in the inauguration.  It’s a flame fest with no moderation and is done reasonably anonymously so you can say anything you want – and the shared catharsis escalates the rhetoric.  Among he WORST exemplars of this mentality on the ‘net, however, have got to be Conservative Christians – the un-Christlike frenzy over “the war on Christmas™” is a great example.  If you propose civil discourse over the whole “Happy Holidays” thing you’re immediately tagged as being against religion – and people pile one.  Try reminding one of those internet mobs that we’re in the season of Advent some time – it’s like dealing with a pack of rabid dogs.

There are, however, mechanisms being developed that are beginning to help people discern the loonies from actual information.  The key is, however, the reality that they are in process.  Comment moderation, and the culture of “don’t feed the trolls” are decent starts.  As the more rabid commenters emerge from their closed-in sites to post on news articles, for example, they are finding more and more that what plays in the mob sounds like idiocy in the wider world.  Time will only tell what societal compacts we’re going to have in the future.

The thing is, we’re in the middle of an insane paradigm shift.  10 years ago no one would have expected the rapid collapse of TV as the mass-medium.  4 years ago no one would have believed that YouTube could help elect a president, or that blogs would suddenly become a source for hard-news (this is a good and bad thing).  That is, however, the point – we’re in transition.  In this time Voices like DA Carson’s are valuable because they at least ask people to think before leaping into the surf, and that’s a good thing.  What I don’t appreciate, however, is how he framed the discussion.  I’m not sure that a hard-line rhetoric of, “Are we becomming just like the world” is helpful when the entire culture is in a paradigm shift.  The way Dr. Carson puts it makes me imagine that Christians weren’t alongside the rest of the culture before this shift started happening – this just isn’t the case.  Rather, I’d hope that Christians would work in community so that as the shfit happens we’ll already have thought out what our mission is going to look like as the Paradigm continues to shift – and how we can be there to make disciples of depth and grace.