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The real revolution

15 comments on The real revolution

The real revolution

: Dan Henninger, deputy editorial-page editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal, spent last Saturday at the Harvard Internet conference soaking in words about the work of people bringing citizens’ media to the world and today he writes a wonderful column about the real revolution brewing:

“American influence” is the great white whale of the 21st century, and Jacques Chirac is the Ahab chasing her with a three-masted schooner. Along for the ride is a crew that includes Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il, Kofi Annan, the Saudi royal family, Robert Mugabe, the state committee of Communist China and various others who have ordained themselves leaders for life. At night, seated around the rum keg, they talk about how they have to stop American political power, the Marines or Hollywood.

The world is lucky these despots and demagogues are breaking their harpoons on this hopeless quest. Because all around them their own populations are grabbing the one American export no one can stop: raw technology. Communications technologies, most of them developed in American laboratories (often by engineers who voted for John Kerry), have finally begun to affect an historic shift in the relationship between governments and the governed. The governed are starting to win.

Not that long ago, in 1989, the world watched demonstrators sit passively in Tiananmen Square and fight the authorities with little more than a papier-m

15 responses to “The real revolution”

  1. Andy Freeman Avatar
    Andy Freeman

    > Communications technologies, most of them developed in American laboratories (often by engineers who voted for John Kerry),
    But, mostly by engineers who didn’t.
    Engineers are more likely to be Repubs than Dems. However, both percentages are lower than one might expect because a disproportionate number of engineers are libertarians of one sort or another.

  2. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    What communication technologies developed in the US is he talking about? The cellphones he hails in the Ukraine were likely made in Japan or Finland. Is the fact that Movable Type was coded in the US reason to jump around about how great America is and how we’re spreading freedom across the globe? Seems a little tenuous.
    And in what universe are such broad generalizations about how engineers voted (either Henninger’s and Andy Freeman’s) plausable? How on Earth can you say “engineers are more likely to be Republican…”

  3. Jeff (E) Avatar
    Jeff (E)

    I think you’ll find that it depends what kind of engineer you are. The majority of the software engineers I know are to the left of Karl Marx. But it seems like engineers working in the defense industry would be Republicans.
    Of course I’m just guessing and now ducking because this would be a fruitless argument for me without any facts.
    Also, I agree with Michael, it seems like the cell phones in the Ukraine probably wouldn’t come from the US.

  4. MWB Avatar
    MWB

    I’m just wondering how the engineers’ voting choices are relevant to the article.

  5. Hovig Avatar
    Hovig

    Jeff,
    Please allow me to report what your modesty prevented you from saying. Henninger’s article concludes by saying this, in the penultimate paragraph (emphasis mine).
    Jeff Jarvis, one of this movement’s most intelligent thinkers set them straight: “This is not about causes or organizing people. It’s about us creating these tools and then simply having faith in people who use them elsewhere to do good.”
    You deserve the praise, if for no other reason than continually holding the mainstream media members’ feet to the fires, and for your advocacy of Iraqi blogging (esp. Iraq the Model).
    Well done, Jeff.

  6. None Avatar
    None

    The majority of engineers I know didn’t vote for anyone. They’re not US citizens.

  7. Richard Bennett Avatar
    Richard Bennett

    The Internet, e-mail, and the blog were invented by American engineers, mostly working for the Defense Department, many of them hippies with ponytails. The cell phone was invented by American engineers working for Motorola, and the picture phone by American and Japanese engineers working for Sharp. Communications satellites were invented at AT&T’s Bell Labs.
    It’s hard to say which way communications engineers vote as a group. As in many other groups, the younger ones are to the left of the older ones, the richer ones are to the right of the poorer ones, recent immigrants from totalitarian states like China are to the right of recent immigrants from social welfare states like India.
    Among the elite researcher guys, there are more liberals than conservatives, but they virtually all have problems with authority and therefore lean to the libertarian side.
    Engineers who view society as another gadget with which to tinker are liberals, of course, but this is a naive view.

  8. gg Avatar
    gg

    Cool, the US can say we invented a bunch of technology which helped facilitate many of these movements. But democracy was invented by the ancient Greeks.

  9. Jeff Jarvis Avatar
    Jeff Jarvis

    It doesn’t really matter where the technology was invented except that the technology is exporting democracy.

  10. Yehudit Avatar
    Yehudit

    The sequel to Henniger’s article is to raise the alarm about the UN trying to control the internet. This article is a year old but the stealth movement to bring the internet under UN supervision continues. The MSM is ignoring it.
    Jeff, if you know Henninger, maybe you can bring this to his attention?

  11. J. Peden Avatar
    J. Peden

    Free thought has found a way to spread itself and feed and breed more free thought. Amazing how insidious it is, and a veritible pestilence to those whose nature is not free thought.
    The neverending war continues, Good vs Evil. As Bush said, “If you are not with us, you are against us”, as defined by the Bush Doctrine. Pre-emption is enacted by free-thought spread to those who desire freedom, they then being able to be with us.
    So,”Cowboy up”, leftists, or consign yourselves to the camp of the anti-free-thought racists.
    And, all together Now: “We shall overcome, we shall overcome-a-um….”

  12. JRK Avatar
    JRK

    Well said by Henninger. I can understand Jeff’s reluctance to mention the props. In this context, JJ intuits correctly that it may be part of the obligatory bone-tossing by a conservative facing a hostile crowd at Harvard; vide: the bizarre note that engineers in American labs voted for Kerry. Given the venue, I assume that generated the only applause of the night. I would submit, reporting from the other side of the Charles, that the ‘American influence’ and Ahab particulars didn’t exactly please this conflicted audience, i.e. If it means freedom rings on Bush’s watch, Harvard would rather pass on the notion.

  13. Charlie Quidnunc Avatar
    Charlie Quidnunc

    Jeff,
    Great post, and thank you for your championing of Citizens Media. Now, how about picking up a microphone and Podcasting yourself! You were one of the first video bloggers. You were one of the first to RSS feed entire posts. All you need is a microphone and you would be podcasting with the best of us!
    I read today’s post on the Henninger op-ed in my daily podcast on politics at Rip & Read Blogger Podcast. Give it a listen if you get a chance.
    Charlie

  14. Tim Oren Avatar
    Tim Oren

    Factual correction, JRK: Henninger did not speak at the Harvard gathering (I was there). His writing is partially based on what he heard there, but you’ll have to judge its merits as it stands.
    To your other point, yes there were POVs that I thought were over-the-top PC, but with the sole exception of the Election 2004 panel on the first day (not the day that Dan attended) I thought everyone was very respectful of differing viewpoints.

  15. lindon Avatar
    lindon

    Jeff says: It doesn’t really matter where the technology was invented except that the technology is exporting democracy.
    I say: very true this is the most important thing, or nearly, getting some democracy in america would be right up there on my christmas list too.
    Oh I know its inflamatory but face facts you have a very limited form of democratic “comment-by-vote” system (your electoral colleges choose the president – I’d have thought you’d have worked this out by now), and little or no democatic (greek definition) process outside of this. Maybe this is why people are getting huffy about the self-righteous tone of the piece.
    Here in Australia we’re not much better(at least our votes count once in 4 yrs) but we’re not, I think, writing pieces about how we’re exporting democracy either..beer now if we exported that we’d be on the roof tops shouting…