The Network vs. The Despot

Those that study history know that not only is it not static, but that it tends to go though seemingly recurring periods. We’ve seen times where freedom flourishes, times when despots seem to be the flavor du jour, times where great bursts of innovation happen and where darkness and stagnation cast a pall.

Even in our modern day we see the tension between, “I alone can fix it,” and the power of grassroots and social networks to try and bring people together in a common cause.

This idea, the individual vs. the network is, according to esteemed historical Niall Ferguson, one of the most recurring tensions throughout history. He takes us through this remarkable journey in his book The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook.

My conversation with Niall Ferguson:

The real digital divide

If you watch movies or read novels or simply understand the drama that is the human condition, you know that human behavior is often shrouded in mystery. Why we do what we do, how we act and what we think about at four AM, are at the heart of what make us who we are, and in fact what makes us interesting. On the other hand, if we reveal everything about ourselves; if Facebook, and LinkedIn and social networks in general track our every move, our every action, where is the mystery? If every thought is posted, or tweeted, or shared, then where is the human discovery? If we forget that we are more than the sum total of our data points, then Andrew Keene is here to remind us. Keen argues in his new work Digital Vertigo: How Today's Online Social Revolution Is Dividing, Diminishing, and Disorienting Us, that the social network may be weakening, not building up our relationships.

My conversation with Andrew Keen:

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Facebook and our past

Has the rise of Facebook, enabling everyone to keep in touch with everyone else from grade school on, taken away the chance to reinvent yourself that used to come with leaving home? Why, since October of 2008 has Facebook membership for those 35+ increased by 275%? In this Sunday's N.Y. Times Magazine (3/15) Contributing writer Peggy Orenstein asks how you forge your future self when you never leave the present.

My conversation with Peggy Orenstein: