Cloudthink Part II

After re-reading Ethan Zuckerman's post on slacktivism, it was worthy to re-think the problem of conflating mass action with collective organization. He makes some very good points about clearly seeing a lot of social/political use of technology for what it is: not changemaking, just affiliation.

I found a model that describes several steps a group goes through as it becomes engaged , self-aware or participatory. It is Sherry Arnstein's "Ladder of Citizen Participation." It seems a bit more exact in describing the gaps between "a lot of people doing the same thing" (e.g. twittering about Tehrani clashes between the basiji and green-wearing youngsters) and organized self-empowered changemaking groups (especially grassroots movements). My old gripe about the gaps seems just a tad simplistic itself. (see Cloudthink post).

So the argument now might go more like this: If we hope to turn the dispersed actions of many into actual big meta change, it might be worthy to look at models that describe the transition from accidental action or even apathy into revolution. Lets not get too geeky here, but it has got to be better than just trial and error. Isn't that the lesson of all of these schools of government and leadership? That there are actually some methods that produce better results than the gestalt expressing the gestalt?