Disclaimer: I work in Google's Policy Team, developing multistakeholder cooperations for internet governance & policy themes, hence I want to point out that all the opinions and ruminations on this blog are mine, not Google's.


Saturday, June 20, 2009

Emotions ~> Values ~> Rights - An Inspiring TED talk

Jonathan Harris wants to make sense of the emotional world of the Web:







also the two projects sites are interesting

http://www.wefeelfine.org/

Universe, which explores the notions of modern mythology and contemporary constellations.
http://universe.daylife.com/ -- background: http://universe.daylife.com/statement.html


this made me think of Neil Postman's "grand narratives" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Education)

In the second part of the book, Postman proposes 5 narratives as possible alternatives to the current ones:

  • "Spaceship Earth" (the notion of humans as stewards of the planet)
  • "The Fallen Angel" (a view of history and the advancement of knowledge as a series of errors and corrections)
  • "The American Experiment" (the story of America as a great experiment and as a center of continuous argument)
  • "The Laws of Diversity" (the view that difference contributes to increased vitality and excellence, and, ultimately, to a sense of unity)
  • "The Word Weavers/The World Makers" (the understanding that the world is created through language — through definitions, questions, and metaphors)
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basically i would suggest to frame our "human rights online" story as a complementary (sub)narrative of this kind. something like "one free and fair global (online) community" what do you think?

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