What Is Truly Important

Klementina Pavlova
ENGL 155
Professor Huey

In the article “It’s All about Us” by Steven Johnson it is argued that by addressing the local issues on Web 2.0, ordinary people become the experts and therefore more involved in their own community. In his opinion Web 2.0 is a good approach for society because it presents the idea that we can all work together with a common path to achieve success. In the opposing argument, Brian Williams “Enough about You” criticizes Web 2.0 because he sees the negative affects it has produced. In his opinion people have become self-centered and search for information in their own interest box and nobody is really trying to expand their horizons, which causes the decay of democracy. Web 2.0 is all about what “you” want and it generates the idea that “I am the most important”, strengthening the virtues of “Generation Me”. The author uses sarcasm to prove his points and for example, this is referring to the death of the newspaper; “It doesn’t greet us by name. It’s for everyone!”(Williams 450) A prevalent point made by the author is the crashing productivity of our democracy and how it could not survive if we only watch personal appeals of opinion.
In agreeance with William’s argument that the “Generation of Me” which is incorporated into the Web 2.0 is in fact taking over the basic structure of collecting information and news, we see the possibly of destroying democracy. Although some might say that Web 2.0 has the potential to contribute a lot to our education, rather it has taught the new generation to be careless about the world issues and has transformed our society to look for the one way street answer on all issues. Williams also raises the question of how can we be a functional society if we are not active participants in our democracy. The vast amount of information available on Web 2.0 could cause many of us to miss a key story or piece of information crucial to making decisions. The documentary by Frontline, “Cheney’s Law” is a great example of how Web 2.0 hindered news related to war. Web 2.0 allowed the mass to be consumed with distractions.
Web 2.0 and the media are fluttered with useless information. Our national news channels are too busy figuring out which side is too much left or too much right. As Williams says in his article, “It is now possible… to go about your day in America and consume what you wish to see and hear. There are television networks that already agree with you” (450). Fox is extreme and so is MSNBC, we live in a bipolar world, you are either on the far left or on the far right. And every American has a favorite talk show host and a network that they would not want to change, not because of the physical effort but because it would require changing a mindset. We are directly impacted by this partisan information and such trend is also occurring in Web 2.0; and everybody uses the Internet but only looks up information relevant to their daily lives and does not stray away from their path. And in such cases when the public is too consumed with its own lives, information is missed and this no longer could be considered a democracy. The Bush Administration is a perfect example of how an important piece of informational news did not reach the public not because it wasn’t available but because they were too busy reading the new gossip or updating their status on Facebook.

Democracy is a big word and before we go into further discussion, we should ask ourselves what is our perception of its functions and how we can contribute and work together as a society. “Although there is no universally accepted definition of democracy, most scholars agree that democracy includes two basic principles: first, that all members of a society enjoy universally recognized freedoms and liberties, and second, that these members have equal access to power (Schumpeter 8). These principles are based on the concept of popular sovereignty, which holds that the legitimacy of the state and its laws is based on the will of the people; as citizens are the source of all political power, they must be able to play a role in shaping the political decisions that affect their lives”.

American people had given up their civil rights during the time of crisis and nobody said anything. Bush also had unitary executive power; the theory and reality of the unitary executive asserts that all executive authority must be in the President’s hands, without exception. "He [Dick Chaney] believes the president should have the final word -- indeed the only word -- on all matters within the executive branch.” says Former Justice Department attorney Marty Lederman. Unitary executive means that the president had the right to act with unparalleled authority. President George W. Bush had the power to “detain, interrogate, torture, wiretap and spy -- without congressional approval or judicial review”. Judging by these factors of our government and no opposition of the public, we have been having a dictatorship for the past eight years.

The main area of controversy discussed in the documentary “Cheney’s Law” is the issue of Presidential “Signing Statements”. All documents from the “Patriot Act”, to Emergency Presidential Powers to CIA Interrogation Tactics were established in the Vice President’s Office and sighed in absolute secrecy. Everything was signed behind closed doors and in a very fast manner. All of the signed documents deny rights from either American citizens or prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay. The documentary “Cheney’s Law” uses first hand sources such as Goldsmith and John Yoo who were there to witness and take part in the doings of the Bush’s Administration. The most important reason why Bush administration was allowed to expand presidential power in this fashion was because we were attacked and matters of national security take priority over laws. As Cheney said, “this country will need to be governed by men not laws.” This fulfilled his long time agenda to give the President more power that anybody else. The issue of prisoner treatment under the Geneva conventions was handled badly. The Bush administration tried everything to make sure these rules did not apply since torture was one of their main interrogation tactics. The issue of Presidential authority over the wiretapping of American citizens was one of the most crucial of the time and most of the American citizens were not even aware it was happening. The scene in which White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andy Card pleaded with Ashcroft, while he was on his death bed, to overrule the department's decision that a domestic surveillance program was illegal. Ashcroft rebuffed the White House, and as many as 30 department lawyers threatened to resign. Only then, did the Bush Administration reconciled. All of this information was made available through the media, online and on the international news channels. Explain then, how do only a slim percentage of citizens are aware of such atrocities? The answer is, we have too much information and people just don’t know where to look.

In his new book, "The Cult of the Amateur," Andrew Keen expresses many of the things that are of concern to Web 2.0 consumers, such as the disappearing democracy which is an occurring trend since the late 90s curiously enough, since the Internet became widely used. For example, he says, "(Web 2.0) democratization, despite its lofty idealization, is undermining truth, souring civic discourse, and belittling expertise, experience and talent ... it is threatening the very future of our cultural institutions." In this quote the author is presenting his concerns of how the vast majority of people are innocent bystanders of an event that they have been creating and foreseeing the inevitable damage. Andrew Keen is troubled with the future of the cultural institutions that might not be over looked by the population because of the Internet. Web 2.0 has transformed our view of the world and inserted the notion that the commonality of the newspaper and the news is something we should stay away from and stick to the recently know web sites agreeing with us. As Williams states, “The problem is that there’s a lot of information out there that citizens in an informed democracy need to know in our complicated world…” (450). The information is available to us but who has time to go through it when you have four e-mails to check, a Facebook account and a Twitter that needs to be updated at least every hour. This society has too much on their plate to really experience it all. Even though we have this pool of information we still cannot get around basic geographical knowledge or try and read how the lives of other cultures are impacted by actions taken by the United States.
The Millennials also known as the Generation Y or the most recent name for us (13—25) is the “Generation of Me”. Yes, it is a revolutionary concept that we are in control of everything we do, watch, and hear but to our generation is just the normality of life. According to the Urban Dictionary we have strong sense of citizenship, moral, confidence, and sociability; Millennials are usually optimistic, stubborn and civic. Important events of our generation include the Columbine High School shooting, the death of Princess Diana, World Trade Center attacks, and the Iraq/Afghanistan War. We live in the world of internet chat rooms, the boom of reality TV, and multiculturalism. Generation Y or Millennials are primarily children of Baby Boomers and in some cases Generation X. The Baby Boomers cannot understand, but have to deal with GenMes especially in the work place or in advertisement.
The idea that Millennials will watch what suits their interests is a concern raised my Williams. He attacks our generation and suggests that we are naturally biased because we only care about ourselves. Many would agree with the William’s claim which states that we have become obsessed with ourselves and as he puts it “it’s the User- Generated Generation” (Williams 449). There is a great quote by Frank Herbert that expresses this exact notion of freedom; "Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty." Our generation has been spoiled to think that the world revolves around our own interests and if the outside world doesn’t present what appeals to our bubble of life we simply won’t watch it. “Generation Me” is receiving what they want even from the media, which is currently competing for best useless technology award; For example, CNN is constantly coming up with Touch Screens TVs and gadgets that appeal to the younger crowd. During the 2008 Presidential Elections they introduced a hologram of a reporter in Chicago. Firstly, it defeated the purpose of having journalists away (which is to show the surrounding and atmosphere through the TV screen) secondly, the hologram made the show look sloppy and stupid, and thirdly, the reporter looked like a video game character. Even our news networks are trying to satisfy all needs and desires of the audience only to have a few more, maybe younger viewers.
And as Millennials have proven numerous times, we speak the language of the “self” fluently. So much of the "common sense" advice that's given these days includes some variation on "self:" For example, "Just be yourself.", "I learned a lot about myself.", "Believe in yourself." (Often followed by "and anything is possible."), "Yes, express yourself.", "You have to respect yourself.", "Be honest with yourself.", "You have to love yourself before you can love someone else.", "Yes, stand up for yourself". We were so consumed by our lives and selves we neglected to see the larger picture. As Williams says, “We’ve raised a generation of Americans on a mantra of love and importance of self” (450) and this generation will miss the next great book, idea or a dictatorship and an unjust invasion of a foreign country. The Bush Administration enforced strict consumerism in order to keep away from all the secretive and usually illegal steps the government was taking. If Americans were fully aware of the situation, the war in Iraq would not have happened. Information that was summarized in “Cheney’s Law” was missed by the mass back then and is still unknown to American citizens.
Information is power and key for all intended functions of our political sphere. In the article “It’s All about Us” by Steven Johnson advocates the view that when people are involved, on small-scale community blogs or local news they can achieve great work. In such cases ordinary people become the experts and initiators to the communal work. In his opinion Web 2.0 is used as a crutch to society in order to work together. In which case as Kevin Kelly from New York Magazine says, “When masses of people who own the means of production work toward a common goal and share their products in common, when they contribute labor without wages and enjoy the fruits free of charge, it's not unreasonable to call that socialism.” By connecting everybody through Web 2.0 and having them contribute to the end results is a “revised version of socialism”. And in a way Web 2.0 is more communist that any of you has thought about. An activist, provocateur, and aging hippy John Barlow called it "dot-communism" in the late '90s, he defined it as a "workforce composed entirely of free agents," a decentralized gift or barter economy where there is no property and where technological architecture defines the political space. And as we know from not far ago “communism” has a very negative connotation in this country. So are we all communists then? Because we all enjoy the fruits of labor done by others every day. We are indeed mistaken about this so called communism, it turns out that the governing kernel of Wikipedia, Linux, or OpenOffice shows that these efforts extend a lot farther than people putting up information and updating software. There are millions of writers contributing to Wikipedia but the numbers of editors (around 1,500) are responsible for the majority of the editing. As Mitch Kapor, founding chair of the Mozilla open source code factory, observed, "Inside every working anarchy, there's an old-boy network”.
In conclusion, we as a society are very strong and should not let our division in our private lives separates us nationally. We are united and so should our Internet and the knowledge we have on issues should be made available to everybody. Americans need to hear what they do not what to because at the end of the day, that is democracy. If America wants to keep the image of the liberator, the one who invades other countries for the sake of bringing democracy to them and should set an example for the rest of the nations. America is an Empire because it is a democracy but what happens when you cannot hear the voices of the people because they are all talking at once? We are experiencing this exact phenomenon NOW, as Wikipedia, Digg, Twitter, blogs and all sorts of scholarly and non- scholarly information clouds our judgment. Future of Web 2.0 is dependant only of this generation. There is no quick fix to anything but this issue should be addressed. Enough with the “self caring”. As Johnson says there should be “public discussion who designs [search tools, recommendation engines, RSS feeds] and what values are encoded in then” (Johnson, 447). Those are very important recommendations to our society but there’s the possibility that people in different regions would not be informed about the discussions happening in another one. Web 2.0 is too big to contain. There cannot be a good discussion of the Web restrictions if half of the population is unaware of the topic, its background and a personal solution.