Big Worlds, Little Worlds

There must be billions of websites, blogs and videos opened everyday, so what can we make of this anarchic new world? Some want to blame the world's crimes upon it, some think it is lowering moral tone and tempting people to the unspeakable. Others think it is candy on a stick, an new democracy that will free us from corporate tyranny. Quite a few think it is the final breach of privacy that threaten liberty, and that it is all a government plot!

What a whimp I am. None of these propositions seem convincing, and might say more about their proponents than their propositions. Everyone is so 'educated' today. So many people know 'the game' of promoting themselves through 'outrageous' or 'controversial' statements. Few can resist the temptation to joining in the rush, with new theories of evil, the coming doom, how everything tried will fail, and most of all,  that no-one can be trusted.

Can anyone say 'I trust him or her' without sounding naive or dumb?

And yet, there are more and more people who feel compelled to offer their opinions, or guide the world in some better direction. I applaud them.

So here's where I slip into my own little world, only to find it is the same world that I just left.

I belong to a 'closed' website, one where you pay to belong. Sounds juicy Lucy, right? Sorry to disappoint- it's a writers and artists website,a place where you submit you work, and it is criticised or critiqued by other members. And you do the same. I'll spare you details of how it works. But here's what I've found:

-As a site with many US members, the ethos is 'positive'. No, don't get me wrong; I admire and prefer a positive appreciation of the artistic crafts, but there are differing interpretations. In the US 'positive' often amounts to sentiment, a positive sentiment. So when a work is submitted, a positive sentiment says, oh what a nice story, I have to give it 5 (out of 5/6). No critical faculties are allowed to interfere with the purity of sentiment. It's five!

The result?

- a complete destruction of the marking system. It is all so meaningless when sentiment rules. Lack of judgement comes to mind.

-The opportunists, the fast ones, see this as an opportunity to rort. If they can give good marks too (practising writers only can give 6 stars), they receive others sympathy and votes. As well, the opportunists go into production-line answers, prepacked 4 or 5 ready-made assessments that can be pasted in seconds. With the resulting fast 'money' they receive, all their posts to made prominent, so they harvest the sentimental assessments, twenty 'fives' instead of two. Suddenly, they are listed as the 'best'.

The point? All told, in any world, large or small, there will be a range of players: opportunists, rorters, the sentimental, the passive, the critical, the well-meaning, the learners and the teachers. Which one are you? And is it where you want to be?