Individuation in the Blogosphere

Discussion

Juan Urrutia:

“Having shown that the blogosphere is a prime example of a distributed network, I must now move on to the second step of my argument – that is, show how it can further contribute to individuation, something that I have explored in another paper which can be found on my website.[2] The problem, put bluntly, is that, in order to cease to be identified by the characteristics of the group you belong to and start to be recognised by your own unique characteristics as an individual, you must go through an initiation rite which can be called dissidence.

But dissidence comes at a price – that of the bad conscience derived from the betrayal against the group, as well as the possible revenge exacted by the group, including reinsertion costs. The higher this price is, the fewer individuals will crop up: but those who do are more authentic, in a Heideggerian sense.

In this sense, and using Ugarte’s terminology, the more of an individual you are, the less of a person you become. In order to become your own master, you will have had to give up the directives of your group, the web you used to belong to, and hurl yourself into someone else’s web – given that, in the ontology I’m putting forward, there is never a network void. This is where the dialectical wealth of the blogosphere comes from. TICs make it possible to generate a wide distributed network which functions autonomously but which, unlike other collective entities, makes dissidence possible at a low cost.” (http://deugarte.com/gomi/the-power-of-networks.pdf)

Source: foreword in the book: The Power of Networks. By David de Ugarte.