If you read nothing else tonight or over the weekend, read Jonathan Klingler’s post on The Next Right entitled “Change.gov and the Contradiction of the PostModern Left Netroots,” especially the concluding graphs:
“Now we begin to see the inherent contradiction of the left’s netroots organization. They have created a tremendous capacity to organize people to act voluntarily for the accomplishment of the movement’s goals. Philosophically, this goal is to win control of the federal government and use it to fix the ills of society. However, in the end, the federal government runs things from the top-down, and bureaucracies by their very nature are slow and unresponsive. Once the left’s open, decentralized and local movement infrastructure wins control of the federal government, it hands the keys over to elected officials and its job is simply to keep those folks in office.
“In large part, the Obama campaign built itself on the postmodern shift in American society towards self-actualization, meaning, customization and connectedness which has been explored in the literature on design, by political scientists like Ronald Inglehart, and expressed in the new type of business model featured in magazines like Fast Company. 21st century Americans demand more self-actualization in every aspect of their lives and Barack Obama was able to deliver on this politically through his campaign.
“However, the federal government idealized by the Left as the solution to every problem simply is not capable of providing everyday citizens with customized services, active involvement, local solutions and most importantly, meaning. It is the job of bureaucracies to treat everyone equally, and what makes government separate from other entities is that it fundamentally acts through coercion rather than through meaningful individual participation. In the end, the biggest promise of the Obama movement cannot be delivered because of its inherent contradictions.
“Now imagine what conservatives and libertarians could do to improve society through voluntary action if we developed our own version of My.BarackObama.com. The possibilities for non-governmental solutions are almost limitless. That’s real hope for change.”
Jonathan has succinctly said in those four graphs what I have been trying to say since my very first blog post on Tapscott’s Copy Desk shortly after the 2004 election – the Internet empowers individuals, not bureaucracies. That means the Internet is a fantastic tool for those of us who believe in individual freedom. What we have to do is figure out how to make that empowerment a reality. In the meantime, what about the results of the election?
Yes, the Left has beaten us in learning to use the Internet at the campaign level and it is obviously imperative that conservatives learn to win elections digitally, too. But sooner or later there will be a realization among LeftRoots brains and donors that the digital foundation of this tool they have created empowers individuals but the programs they support in government take that empowerment away from individuals. Thus, they are in one sense helping to sow the seeds of their own electoral demise. It’s just a matter of time. Ultimately, our challenge is to figure out how to maximize individual freedom and opportunity via digital empowerment.
You heard it here first, my friends. Have a great weekend.
UPDATE: It Was Klingler, Not Ruffini
Well, what can I say, except that somehow when I originally read the post, I thought it was authored by Ruffini. My apologies to Jonathan. I’ve updated the above to reflect the true authoriship of the original post that inspired my thoughts. I also encourage those seriously interested in this discussion to go back to Klingler’s original post and read the comments subsequently posted to it. As of this morning and this update, there are 27 comments, including this response by Klingler. His concluding graph says it best:
“There is an opening for the Right to create a new paradigm for how individuals relate to society and government, taking these new demands into account. As these tools grow, we will be able to address more and more problems without the need of government and provide a powerful argument for replacing Leviathan. A new website is not the answer, and we may not be in a position as a society to really mobilize people for non-governmental action for years, but we will eventually, and then it will be the Right which is positioned to finally provide a freedom-based Society 2.0.”
Think about that graph long and hard because it has the seed of the Right’s future in it.
