What we do
2008-04-28 18:01:34.872604+00 by Dan Lyke 2 comments
A couple of disconnected notes. The first is the usual disheartening observation from a semi-local elementary school talent show, made by a friend: The white kids all think talent is lip-sync to some pop music, the non-Caucasians think it's playing Beethoven on the piano or violin.
The second is that yesterday I went to the hardware store and the bike store, and in the process walked through an antique fair. One of the vendors was selling a "soap box derby" car. A few decades ago, a town like this would generate a surplus of 20-30 of those a year, now they're a collectible.
Which brings me to Clay Shirky: Gin, Television and Social Surplus:
So I tell her all this stuff, and I think, "Okay, we're going to have a conversation about authority or social construction or whatever." That wasn't her question. She heard this story and she shook her head and said, "Where do people find the time?" That was her question. And I just kind of snapped. And I said, "No one who works in TV gets to ask that question. You know where the time comes from. It comes from the cognitive surplus you've been masking for 50 years."
I'm not sure what I think about Shirky's assertion yet, but it's worth pondering.