X-Message-Number: 4828
From:  (David Stodolsky)
Subject: Fwd: Cybersobriety/new book: Democracy & Technology (Loka Alert 2-6)
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 95 15:57:53 +0200 (CET DST)

Forward of letter <> from :

     Third, a strength--but also a drawback--to a virtual
community is that any member can exit instantly.  Indeed, an
entire virtual community can atrophy or perish in the wink of an
eye.  To the extent that membership in virtual communities proves
less stable than that obtaining in other forms of democratic
community, or that social relations prove less thick (i.e., less
embedded in a context saturated in shared meaning and history),
there could be adverse consequences for individual psychological
and moral development.  In the words of psychologist Robert
Kegan:

     "Long-term relationships and life in a community of
     considerable duration may be essential if we are not to
     lose ourselves, if we are to be able to recollect
     ourselves.  They may be essential to the human
     coherence of our lives, a coherence which is not found
     from looking into the faces of those who relieve us
     because they know nothing of us when we were less than
     ourselves, but from looking into the faces of those who
     relieve us because they reflect our history in their
     faces, faces which we can look into finally without
     anger or shame, and which look back at us with love." 

              [From _The Evolving Self_ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
              University Press, 1982), p. 218).]

[snip]
                       *        *        *

     This excerpt is adapted from Richard E. Sclove, _Democracy
and Technology_ (New York: Guilford Press, 1995).  Paperback ISBN
0-89862-861-X; hardcover ISBN 0-89862-860-1.  _Democracy and
Technology_ can be ordered from your local bookseller, or it is
available in paperback for U.S. $18.95 (plus shipping cost) from
Guilford Press, 72 Spring St., New York, NY 10012, USA.  Tel.
+(212) 431-9800; Tel. toll free (800) 365-7006; Fax +(212)
966-6708.  E-mail: 



David S. Stodolsky      Euromath Center     University of Copenhagen
   Tel.: +45 38 33 03 30   Fax: +45 38 33 88 80 (C)


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