nettime: GERMAN MINISTER PRED

[morgan.garwood@thing.nyc.ny.us (by way of Pit Schultz <pit@contrib.de>)]

there will always be *authorities*, and these people, we must remember, got
into their positions by mastering a specific style of social and political
game. One imagines that they wouldn't have even been qualified to enter the
game if they did not have certain childhood experiences and character
formations that made them well suited to functioning within a bureaucratic
style of operation.
  The way that information moves through the internet is highly non-similar
with the techniques of information control and "leakage" that one must master
to be an accomplished bureaucrat.
  We see an excellent example with this in France, where there appears to be a
"legitimate" Bishop (as in a real, ordained Catholic Bishop whose position is
accepted both by the Church and the people) of The Net. Hey, that's nice... a
Bishop of The Internet.
  This fellow had manage to irritate the Pope with some mildly unconforming
ideas, so the Pope made him the Bishop of a patch of sand in North Africa, a
*nominal Diocese*. Normally, this is a standard bureaucratic technique of
dealing with troublemakers without expelling them from the system (which also
has the negative potential of turning them into enemies, or even worse, public
embarrassments). This time, however, an unprecedented step was taken of
creating a website which this Bishop "inhabits", communicates with his flock,
and spreads beneficience throughout the Net. 
  From this example, we see ONE aspect of the true impact of the net starting
to become clear... it is redefining the *role* and identity of the bureaucratic
type... perhaps the neo-bureaucrat will be more responsive and more pro-active
(either that or "walk the plank"), and find new ways to interact with society
at large and become more useful.


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