Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Sunday, August 04, 2013

Trend Spotting

An incidental point easily overlooked in the context of that possibly overlong last post deserves attention on its own terms:
There is no such thing as an historically agentic or otherwise forceful "trend." "Trends" are retroactive narrative constructions at their best, but usually their retroactivity is falsely projected as if from the vantage of a non-existing superior height (fashion trends announced from fashion authorities) or from the future (which is inhabited by no one at all) in which case they are always prescriptions masquerading as descriptions.

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