Time and internet policy
It seems like an important year for online policy. The FCC is making strides towards treating all online applications alike. The UN is getting into the internet governance (some people now call it “IG”) game. Every day brings news of one kind or another.
But on Friday I dropped in on the Harvard ILaw seminar very briefly, and during the 40 minutes I was there I heard two people talking about policy proposals they'd made over the last couple of years. I said to someone near me, “This seems a little old.” He said, sensibly, “That's just because you're bored with it.” And someone else said to me, a little later, “You're just in a time warp,” or words to that effect.
I feel a little like the older Schlegel sister, who has a dinner party of very trendy people who talk very quickly to one another about books and plays that they've all seen. They flit from subject to subject, darting towards the new thing, alighting with joy on each bright fresh subject like a literary pack of hounds. To this dinner party the eldest Schlegel invites Mrs. Wilcox from across the street. Mrs. Wilcox is older, wiser, and quiet - she doesn't say much, and leaves early. Mrs. Wilcox says something vague and soothing to Margaret Schlegel as she leaves, about how smart her friends are, but Margaret is cut to the quick. She feels terrible about how Mrs. Wilcox has been treated, and in the end comes to understand what Mrs. Wilcox's wisdom is made of (you have to read the book).
There's a risk of darting from thing to thing (”Oh, ICANN, that's so yesterday“) in this area. I'm as subject to it as anyone else. In fact, the nature of the medium we use (lots of news, infinitely interesting varieties of information) lends itself to fractured attention and a sense that events are rushing by.
Following my Schlegel-ist feeling of this weekend, I'm chagrined. I pledge to be more sensible this summer.
Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.