The American Spectator

Another Perspective

(Page 2 of 3)

p> 1. The "Flash Mob" br> Guaranteed to make the lists as one of the "New Words of 2003," this effervescent social phenomenon was born in this spring in New York City, and by the end of September, was widely declared passé. For the uninitiated, the gambit can be easily described: A group of strangers organize themselves via email, agreeing to appear at a to-be-designated place and time. Then, using pagers and cell phones as tactical deployment devices, hundreds of people converge on a random spot in Manhattan -- such as a clothing store -- all asking for the same silly item. Then, on another cue, each member of the group disperses and disappears as quickly as he arrived. The "flash mob" is nothing more or less than living modern art -- form without substance, appreciated by the kind of people who eschew Oreo cookies for biscotti. /p>

Despite the manifestoes of the organizers, there is of course an alternate subtext of substance: flash mobs are simply the latest way for people to meet while still pretending that they're not. Skeptics are permitted to view the flash mob as just an updated structure that engineers ambiguity back into the mating ritual, a process best described fifty years ago in the Oscar Hammerstein lyric: "I know how it feels to have wings on your heels and to glide down the street in a trance, you glide down the street on the chance that you'll meet and you meet -- not really by chance."

p> 2. The California Recall br> As observed from here at ground zero in Santa Monica, the recall is all substance and no form. This is not a political movement as much as a "tipping point" response by a sufficient number of people who perceive a clear and present threat to their livelihood and lifestyles. In another demonstration of the power of the new informational environment technologies, the petition process (jumpstarted by cash) expanded "virally" through an unplanned but highly integrated campaign in the new media: websites, talk radio, and email. This was the first time that petitions could be downloaded to a home computer, and the result was a dramatic rise in the number of signatures as well as an incredible turnaround time. /p>

As someone who was publicly talking recall before November's election, this only became a possible dream in July, when I signed the petition at the Santa Monica Farmers' Market. There, I was joined in signing by a rainbow coalition of angry citizens, a heterogeneous though affluent group that previously agreed upon nothing except possibly the scarcity of real tomatoes.

The legacy of the recall campaign will not include an "Arnold" political party or any other activist organization. The motivation of most recall was precisely to recede politics back to their correct California place, which is off the radar screen. Now that the recall question is resolved, people will go back to their lives. The enduring political change is the appreciation the electorate now has of its own potential to effect change; the latency to rise up some time in the future will be much greater.

p> 3. The Howard Dean Campaign br> "Dean is nothing more or less than the first guy to really understand that the Internet is the new 'direct mail.'" /p>

topics:
Television, Religion, Environment, Founding Fathers, Iraq, Israel