User:Marie Wocher/Essay outline

Hessels Indignez-vous! is the request to us, the young, to appal. Hessel asks us to interfere, to complain. Because appeal means getting involved. And getting involved means change. He misses engagement and our voice but on the same time Hessel noticed, that it becomes more difficult for us, the young, to apall because our world is more complex. It is not anymore the little upper-class, we can condemn. The world is big and not that easy, we live in cross connections and feel the interdependencies, we are part of. The world is not that black and white anymore, like it was in the time after World war II To be a member of the Résistance ment to be against the german occupation and against the stalinist totalitarism. Clear was also that France has to free their colonies and that Algeria needed to become independent. Maybe Hesse is a pioneer of the occupy movement. The protest is addressed to what Hessel named the "dictatorship of the finance markets" that endangers democracy and peace. The power of money is as huge and egoistic as never before. Lobbyists and banker in important positions shape the world because they determine the privatised money industry and they are not interested in the common good. Never before the difference between rich and poor has been bigger than today. Hessel asked us to interfere, to complain. Because appeal means getting involved. And getting involved means change. The responsible in economy, politics and society should not be silenced by the dictatorship of the finance markets that endangers democracy and peace. The "Without me" attitude is the worst we can do to ourselves and the world because what happens is, that we don't care, don't apal, don't change anything.

On the one hand, we have these refusal to participate and apparently not the wish to shape the society we live in (even the occupy movement is the first step towards engagement) and on the other hand we have the digital world, where people are very active. People comment articles, share data, exchange knowledge on blogs on twitter and Facebook. In Steve Harkins book Cyburbia he describes the development of the Web from a one-dimensional one to the peer-to-peer structure, we have now. A structure within everyone is horizontally connected, within everyone can be a writer, an editor, a critics, an expert. Above all Harkins shows how important this interaction in the Web 2.0 environment became to us and that our social behaviour is directed by cyburbia. The prime example of being influenced by cyburbia is the membership of Facebook. Bringing together million of people without the given hierarchy structure in real life, changes life incredibly. The observation of people, presenting oneself, sharing information became more important than anything else. But not only facebook, also other peer-to-peer communication like Youtube, Google and File-sharing sites has changed our behaviour. Harkin doesn't skip any web 2.0 curiosity, he writes about tagging to be found the best, changing your avatars sex in Second Life, Wilfing ( what was I looking for?) the phenomenon that you get lost by browsing through the web, character assassination via spam mails and persuing a career with the help of Youtube. The film PressPausePlay by David Dworsky and Victor Köhler question if democratised culture mean better art, film, music and literature. Is it cultural democracy or mediocrity? Everyone is a filmmaker, photographer, a writer or a musician. Everyone can be an artist because hardware became affordable and software became understandable for everyone. What happens is that everyone try to write a book, make music or buy a camcorder to record stuff, throwing it on youtube. It is no longer defined who is an artist and who is not, who is the expert, who the amateur. This democratisation in art what the film sketches had been possible because of the technical revolution and of the peer-to-peer web structure. So, participation seems to be a lot easier in the web environment. Is it because it feels democratised or just because the Web structure provides a platform for self-expression? Is the activity in the Web uncoupled of engagement in real life? What is the difference between the which to participate in the web structure but not having the drive to shape society in real life? Can we make the difference between digital and analog life anymore or is Harkin right when he says that Cyburbia changed the conduct of our society, inside and outside Web 2.0.