<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
<html><head><style type="text/css"><!--
blockquote, dl, ul, ol, li { padding-top: 0 ; padding-bottom: 0 }
--></style><title>[Air-l] Re: peace</title></head><body>
<div>Steve asks:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><font size="-1">This is not directly, and perhaps only very
indirectly, internet/war</font><br>
<font size="-1">related. I had a very odd experience today giving a
guest lecture to</font><br>
<font size="-1">a group of undergraduate students in an introductory
course. We spoke</font><br>
<font size="-1">about the internet and its potential during the
war...or I should say</font><br>
<font size="-1">that I spoke about it, virtually to a person none of
them seemed to</font></div>
<div><font size="-1">want to talk about the war in any way, shape or
form... I'm wondering quite how to</font></div>
<div><font size="-1">account for the attitudes I encountered
today.</font></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I think one reason is that it is being presented in the media as
a sporting/videogame spectacle with play by play action in which heros
are captured, bad guys surrender, and there are lots of exciting
explosions and cool machines. It's not about cities of a million
without electricity or water. It's not about suffering. It's like a
high-power episode of Survivor with a really big cast that's on 24
hours a day but doesn't have the angle of watching relationships
develop.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Personally, I feel so horrified by both the fact of it and by the
way it is being presented and discussed that I want to avoid the topic
just to keep from feeding the machine. I'll send my check to the
American Friends Service Committee, avoid tv and newspapers, and try
to be a positive influence on others. But I don't want to talk about
the war, and especially not in my classes.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>That's me. But there's a couple of possible explanations for the
attitudes you've encountered.</div>
<div> </div>
<x-sigsep><pre>--
</pre></x-sigsep>
<div>Nancy Baym<x-tab>
</x-tab>http://www.ku.edu/home/nbaym<br>
Communication Studies, University of Kansas<br>
102 Bailey Hall, 1440 Jayhawk Blvd., Lawrence, KS 66045, USA<br>
Association of Internet Researchers: http://aoir.org</div>
</body>
</html>