The Big Blogging Net
Posted on March 4, 2008
Filed Under What's New |
So a week of blogging around the world might be in order. No Edison Chen, no Scarlett. Just another attempt to connect.
I remember posting this a while back.
I’m curious how the massive multitude of bloggers becomes a smaller number of networks. I believe we can only understand blogging if we can get some sense of its shape so today - a lazy day hanging around in the gallery - I went looking for Chinese bloggers - necessarily writing in English! There is of course a China blog list and they’re doing a great job.
Top of their hot list today was Mei Guan Xi, a blog from a New Yorker in Shanghai learning Chinese. This line struck me: “….in 2003 China became 1 of only 3 nations to send a person out to space.” The reason for that observation - it’s hellish expensive to get people out there and it is the preserve of superpowers. China is well on its way to being one.
One fascination in the blogs that really get down to discussing China’s future role is the extreme discomfort that the key questions force upon us. For example current economic thinking assumes that we in the west will maintain our economic superiority because we are ultimately more creative - we are gravitating to the creative economy, a place beyond non-westerners’ capabilities. This is so much junk intellectualism.
The question we have to ask is how are we going to catch up. Our historical economic good fortune is on the wane. US Defense Secretary Gates in China recently said: “China’s increasing political and economic stature calls for this country to take on a greater share of responsibility for the health and success of the international system.”
The blog China Redux answers: “This of course depends on an underlying faith and belief in the rightness of the international system.”
Therein lies the problem - our complacent belief that our totems still matter.
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2 Responses to “The Big Blogging Net”
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Hi Haydn,
Great blog you have here, and thanks for linking to the Carrot Revolution. I’ve posted and will continue to post articles about art in China there as well, as I’m an expat living in shanghai, and there’s a lot of exciting stuff going on here!
Thanks again.
Hi David, and welcome. I’ll pop back over to the carrot revolution and have a look further.