Back in college, one of my niftier History profs taught the concept of the Hegelian dialectic. (Dr. L. hailed from Latvia, and on the first day of class tried passing off his accent as North Dakotan. He had me eating out of his hand from that point forward.)
Anyhoo. The basic premise of the Hegelian dialectic is that it starts with the current concept of How The World Works (a.k.a the "thesis"). But it doesn't quite cover everything. And, being creatures whose moral/intellectual impulses encourage us to shove the pendulum to the other side of its swing, Newton's Third Law kicks in (and thus is born the "antithesis"). But that doesn't quite cover all the bases, so the weltanshauung hammers out some sort of midnight backroom deal (resulting in the "synthesis").
(The cynically-minded will, of course, recognize that, after a short honeymoon in the popular conciousness, the synthesis becomes the de-facto thesis, and the process begins anew.)
But it's with such memories of thesis-antithesis-synthesis that I turn over an apparent conundrum from two authors that have lately graced my reading list.
Based on nothing save chronological order in the list, the "thesis" is represented by Gary Vaynerchuk, who likes to talk about "lines in the sand." A favorite keynote tactic is to ask the audience to raise their hands if they thought something like, "I will never get a cell phone: Why would I want people to be able to call me wherever I am whenever they felt like it," and then to ask everyone who does not currently have a cell phone to keep their hands up. To a social media consultant, these lines in the sand point to where there is money to be made.
The "antithesis"--again based on nothing other than the order in which my eyeballs hit the oevre--is represented by Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody. Shirky largely deals with the blurring, rather than the drawing of lines. Case in point: Professional journalism vs. amateur reporting/blogging. Or the "blind justice" dispensed by The State vs. the quasi-vigilante name-and-shame "karma" meted out via social media. This no-mans-land, to a preternaturally insightful social philosopher--which is how I categorize Mr. Shirky--is where the action lies.
For those of us who who--for whatever reason--haven't developed the superpowers necessary to decide which trend--i.e. the drawing of lines vs. the blurring of them--to bank on, I think that's where our friend Mr. Hegel comes in. Because, of course, the lines are drawn by those who have something to define...and thus defend. (Never mind that the original "defenders" of the Alamo were, technically, squatters on sovereign Mexican territory. The Bible notwithstanding, history is typically penned by the victors.)
In some cases, it's obvious that for every line-drawer (e.g. the RIAA/MPAA or traditional media) there is at least one party with a more than vested interest in blurring (e.g. indie bands, YouTube, Apple or Markos Moulitsas, Matthew Drudge). The battle lines have already been drawn; protectionist legislation will only postpone the inevitable equalibrium.
In others, the contested area is more like a no-mans-land--and that in a shadow war. To wit: In an amazingly short time, an economy predicated on raising 2.1 kids in the suburbs may seem as ridiculous as the "norm" of snarfing a farmer's breakfast (bacon, eggs, pancakes, etc.) before heading down the hall for nine hours of telecommuting.
Either way, the game is, and will always be, to give value for money. And, naturally, you're better off defining the terms of "value" rather than chasing the metrics after the fact. Whether lines are drawn only after they start to blur (or vice versa) is, to me, a chicken-and-egg kind of question. I won't presume to tackle that--nuh-uh. The job of the entrpreneur is to make money in that hinterland. The job of the social philosopher is to make sense of it on behalf of the rest of us. And, hey, ya gotta have something to think about in the shower, am I right?
