Examples In Action

http://philringnalda.com/blog/2005/08/oreilly_joins_the_search_engine_spam_parade.php

To be human is to be imperfect. We die. We make mistakes.

Sometimes we run from our fallibility by being decisive. But doubt is the natural human state, and decisiveness — more addictive than anything you might shoot into your veins — is often based on a superstitious belief in the magic of action.

David Weinberger, The Cluetrain Manifesto, pag. 122

More related stuff from David http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/mtarchive/004374.html Snippet:

"There is a big difference between a relativistic world in which contrary beliefs assert themselves and a conversational world in which contrary beliefs talk with one another. In the relativistic world, we resign ourselves to the differences. In the conversational world, the differences talk. Even though neither side is going to "win" — conversation is the eternal fate of humankind — knowledge becomes the negotiation of beliefs in a shared world. What do we need to talk through? What can't we give up? What do we believe in common that seems so different? What should we just not talk about? These are the questions that now shape knowledge.

Knowledge is not the body of beliefs that needs no further discussion. Knowledge is the neverending conversation. And much of that conversation is precisely about what we can disagree about and still share a world."

OpenSpace

 The Struggle of Narratives-Attempting to Visualize It Project Description 

http://www.stanford.edu/~rhorn/a/policy/StrggleOfNrrtvs/tocStrggleOfNrrtvs_Intro.html

 Background 

However else we characterize the current world situation, we must acknowledge that we are involved in a struggle of worldviews (or as some have called it, a "struggle of narratives"). It may not be a Huntington's "clash of civilizations" but it is most certainly a struggle of ideas. Among the topics we considered in this project are:


 * What do we mean by struggle of narratives as a context within which diplomacy, politics and the use of force takes place? How is this more than simply the old battle for the "hearts and minds" of the populace?


 * Can the pitched battle of the media be thought of as the "New Fog of War" quite different from that described by Clausewitz?


 * How might a picture of this struggle look from the point of view of our visualization of public policy?


 * Are there new ways to portray the ideological conflict that might help us understand this process more deeply?

 Our Project 

Our project has been developing new ways of graphically analyzing and portraying aspects of this struggle of narratives and its consequences. The linked pages are some of the results of this project.