Democracies depend on buy-in; citizens need to believe in certain basics, starting with the legitimacy of elections. Trump both runs the government and runs it down. The electoral system, he asserts, can’t be trusted. Voter[…]
Tag: Internet
“Anxieties about the internet began to feel more rote and less plausible, in no small part because the internet had disappeared as a distinct place”
In the coming years, as most of America got online, some variation on the cyberporn cycle would repeat almost continuously: about chat-room child predators; about online games; about the emergence of social media; about sexting[…]
“As the internet of 2017 has changed, so has the internet user”
As the internet of 2017 has changed, so has the internet user. We are now in the majority, and our experience is defined by plenitude and freedom, still, but also by a growing sense of[…]
“Paradoxically, framing the internet as a text to be read, not a life to be led, tends to break, without effort, its spell”
Looking at a screen is not living. It’s a concentrated decoding operation that requires the keen, exhausting vision of a predator and not the soft focus that allows all doors of perception to swing open.[…]
“Our present panics tend to arrive just as new parts of our economy, culture and politics are reconstituted within platform marketplaces”
The internet of the 1990s was a perfect canvas for alarmism: hard to define, easy to misunderstand, growing rapidly but not yet vital or even familiar to those most inclined to worry about it. But[…]
“While modernity promised Jews and other minorities that they could move from the margins to the center, it’s the reverse that may have actually occurred”
While modernity promised Jews and other minorities that they could move from the margins to the center, it’s the reverse that may have actually occurred. In the era of radical globalization and the internet, it[…]
“Never have so many people had so much access to so much knowledge and yet have been so resistant to learning anything”
These are dangerous times. Never have so many people had so much access to so much knowledge and yet have been so resistant to learning anything. In the United States and other developed nations, otherwise[…]
“Online Jewish communities…provide…types of symbols and language…that help reinforce communal identity and unity”
Anderson explains the use of language and symbols that help reinforce communal identity and unity. Online Jewish communities also provide these types of symbols and language. For example, the Orthodox movement uses pictures of a[…]
“Trolls work through abstraction, leveraging the internet and irony to carve out a space between actions and consequences”
Trolls work through abstraction, leveraging the internet and irony to carve out a space between actions and consequences. Becoming president has blown Trump’s cover: There’s nothing more consequential than this. Trolls are typically outsiders, and[…]
“There is no substantial evidence to see if Aish’s movement is more effective than Chabad’s, but the more modern approach to the material does continue to set the difference in tone in these two online orthodox movements”
Like Chabad, Aish provides links to information about their schools and drop-in classes. The website has articles like “Nobituary” with a photo of Whoopi Goldberg, and the caption attached states, “One Jew’s creative way to[…]