[Air-l] Re: Road Warriors -- anomie, etcetera

[Wendy Robinson]

To be clear, I said that "those who have been influenced by Innis, McLuhan, 
Beniger and Carey" -- which is a lot of people, most of us on the list, I 
assume.  Those who have considered the effect of the telegraph and 
distributed communication, pre-Internet.  Anomie as a condition of life on 
the road and the virtual community and modern to postmodern communication 
and the existential condition thereof.

The life of the contemporary, vagabond, technomadic scholar is one sort of 
road warrior.  the Taliban with their cell phones and dish transmissions 
are another, and quite literally warriors on the old silk road.  But 
actually I don't know that I would privilege that term.  What interests me 
in the thread is taking your work and gizmos with you wherever you go, the 
fact that the logging in and out metaphors are losing their centrality and 
that this changing paradigm is global.

We're better connected, yet more atomized.  Thus far, enthusiastic claims 
aside, the Net has not brought about universal brotherhood and 
understanding.  We communicate more, but perhaps listen less (very old 
dystopic claims, again dating to the electric telegraph).  We have 
conveniences that contribute to our business and social lives and that 
enable the most recent iteration of the "road warrior" lifestyle, yet 
they're also a pain in the neck.  It's more stuff to buy and keep up with, 
encouraging greater corporate incursion, however nearly undeniably cool, 
mobilizing, etcetera.