The middle is not where the excitement is
Doc Searls quotes Britt Blaser about the problems of partisanship:
Fire-breathing partisanship is what we¹ve always done. It's what got us here. Maybe it¹s time to lay down that hatred and back slowly away.
That's just not going to happen. The middle - whether it's IT, partisan politics, or sports - is where ideas go to get crushed. Let me throw it back at Doc - are you ready to take a middle course on net neutrality? How about on Linux?
I rather doubt it. Likewise, people who are political partisans tend to be highly motivated, and highly interested. They are the 1% who actively engage in the game (to pull in what Nick Carr likes to note about participation in any field). The supposedly "reasonable" people in the middle are those who are not actively engaged - pretty much by definition. Pick a field - marketing, software development, politics, what have you: do you really want the people who don't care that much to be in charge? More importantly, do you think they will suddenly engage themselves?
Comments
[] August 7, 2006 22:40:20.000
You haven't worked in any large bureaucracies lately. Fire-breathing partisanship is for the guys in the trenches who do the work. The "reasonable" people who have no passion are the ones who tend to get promoted, and they become the ones who make the decisions. That's where "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" came from. Later, "Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft." And now, "Nobody ever got fired for using Java." Well, duh, gee, Tennessee, everybody else uses Java, so I guess we'll use it too. Duh.
Middle Management
[ James Robertson] August 8, 2006 0:52:29.000
Hmm - Java is now mainstream, so the behavior you describe is no surprise. Back in 1995 though, Java was being pushed up by tech evangelists. IT management tends to be conservative in their solution outlook, and embraces change only when it looks like the herd is going that way
interesting vs. rational
[Lex Spoon] August 8, 2006 9:08:24.333
Partisans are more interesting, but rarely rational. Partisans write better novels and lead better pep rallies. However, they suck at writing software where the results matter.
Jim writes: "do you really want the people who don't care that much to be in charge? More importantly, do you think they will suddenly engage themselves?"
You want someone who cares, yes--someone who cares about results.
Middle courses
[Doc Searls] August 9, 2006 6:29:24.326
Actually, I don't toe the party line on Net Neutrality at all, and to some extent not with Linux, either.
If you look at what I've written and said about Net Neutrality, I think it's a fine sentiment but not something I want burned into law. (As something of a libertarian I am reluctant to burn *anything* into law unless there's a very good reason.) Net Neutrality is a political term far more than a technical one. Unintended consequences -- bad ones -- would be inevitable. Yet I also oppose most of what the carriers are lobbying through congress. What road, or roads, am I taking there? Strong principles are involved; they just don't line up with the current left./right partisan positions.
As for Linux, I'm all for it and make my living writing about it. But I've spoken often against the practice of, for example, collapsing distinctions (say, between open/closed and proprietary/public domain), mostly along emotionally charged good/bad lines, which is common in the Linux community. (They'll say open/proprietary are opposites when they are not.)
Partisans for principles are, to me, more interesting than partisans for parties. The former make for good arguments. The latter make for good sports coverage.