This post on Line of Site about how the podcasting medium is so far ahead of curve and is by its very nature, a domain of unenforceability with respect to content and language (decency). Pretty interesting.
It makes me wonder about the difference between ideas of society based (knowingly or not) on Rousseau and his apologists versus those based on Hobbs/Locke/Smith and their apologists. It seems to me that there is some profound difference in the outcomes, even though I can’t really seem to put my finger on it. It also seems that this article is falling right into those lines of difference.
Something like society under control versus society under command – but that is too brutish, too broad, and too rough to be the whole story. Podcasting, like any tool that subverts the exercise of control or command, flies under the radar – if you are trying to maintain the command or control infrastructure, aren’t looking for it because it isn’t conventional.
Now, to say that anything p2p is flying under the radar these days ought to be a ridiculous statement. It ought to be a pretty well known parallel universe for anyone who is moving information in any form between more than two parties. Obviously it isn’t and belaboring that point is a waste of time. Should the powers that be permit the formation of closed societies that permit free-er speech than the mainstream? Should they explicitly forbid them? Maybe that isn’t the point. Maybe the point is that they can’t stop them, and they can’t enforce any rule preventing them, so to try is, in some way, essentially immoral.
But maybe if you believe that Men are incapable of governing themselves in society it isn’t.