The final session of the Philosophy of Social Media (#philsocial) course I've been attending and blogging about here sought to pull together the various themes and threads of the previous five weeks. When distilled into just a couple of hours it became clear to me what a fundamental change the arrival of social media represents. Not entirely in and of itself, but as at once an enabler and a by-product of a significant shift in human affairs. Welcome to the Second Enlightenment, or "Enlightenment 2.0"?
Several of the key themes of Dr Rayner's course weave together to form a cohesive argument - for me anyway - that what is in play right now is the twenty-first century equivalent of The Enlightenment. The Eighteenth century intellectual and cultural movement in essence saw the birth of modern democracy and prompted modern scientific endeavour and the Industrial revolution amid the thinking of Issaac Newton, Voltaire, Locke, Rouseau and found its crescendo in American Independence and The French Revolution.
Dr Rayner reprised his comparison from the 5th lecture of Spinoza - a pillar of Enlightened thinking - versus Hobbes. Where Hobbes saw a social contract based on fear and danger, Spinoza saw it based on love, co-operation and common affinity. It has been Spinoza's ideas that Rayner used to underscore the essential ethics of the social revolution throughout.
This is not a sudden movement, and as such we learnt about Rhizomatic theory - where new movements don't develop in full view like a tree but suddenly emerge after gradual underground gestation - much like a potato. Thus new Social technologies are playing a powerful part in what appears to be the movement's present emergence into the mainstream.
In the second lecture, there was the contention that the roots and genesis of this revolution can be found in the Counter-culture of the 1960s and embody many of those key themes - peace, love and harmony. Then through the Hacker Culture of the 1980s, where co-operation and collaboration led to a commonly owned outcome - ultimately crystalised into the internet. It is disruptive and irreverent - like the 1984 Apple MacIntosh Supe
In lecture 3 we looked at how concepts of "The Gift Culture" and Collaborative Consumption (one of "10 ideas that will change the world" according to TIME magazine.) define the new social era as much as the new trends in "prosumerism" - where the user is at once consumer and producer of shared, mutually-owned content.
In lecture 4 we looked at how now the emergence of new standards in trustworthyness and influence such as Klout, Kred, Peerindex or most recently Trustcloud - mean that your online activity and conduct could roll into a score ultimately as important as your credit rating as companies now begin to award discounts and special access based on your Klout score. Obviously, this means that in time, acts of pro-active and public kindness or collaboration might be wise investments in your future.
Finally in lecture 5 we also saw the power of social to convene anything from a brief flash mob or swarm to a fully-fledged revolution such #arabspring or #occupy - harking back to the disruptive counter-culture explored in lecture 2.
As we drew towards a close, Dr Rayner summed up what he saw to be four key pillars of the Social Media phenomenon:
- You have to give to get back - pay it forward and gift culture environment
- Trust as a social currency - reputation as important as a credit rating
- co-creation as an intrinsic motivator - mutual benefit, creative win-wins
- Look for collaborative advantage - add value.
It occurred to me that so many of these new characteristics of social intercourse signal a quite different social, cultural, political and commercial environment from the one we are used to. The possible end of command-and-control management in both society and business to a world where consensus and mutual benefit as well as individual empowerment drive decision making.
Commercially too we see fundamental change to where the dynamics of economic interest are as much about shared-ownership and gift culture and less about ownership and capitalist profit. The way companies engage with customers and employees - collaboratively and peer-to-peer - will change radically in the coming years. Some 50-to-a-hundred years' hence this could be as different a world from today as 1850 was from 1750. That time period saw the invention of steam, democracy, the labour movement, the beginnings of universal suffrage and international co-operation - replacing war, despotism, industrial exploitation, agrarian serfdom and slavery.
What was a key factor in the spread of those new and radical ideas? The Printing Press and the Steam Engine. I think I have come to the conclusion that what is emerging - rhizomatically - is a new Age of similarly significant transformation in human affairs, where social media is today a major catalyst. As in the late eighteenth century. Those that recognise this and join it might even become referred to as "enlightened".
It was an awesome course and I am greatly endebted to Dr Tim Rayner for his "enlightening" thoughts. I strongly urge you to enroll for the next run of this, starting September 4. Here is the final deck: