Jaron Lanier's piece in the Wall Street Journal this week is an interesting but ultimately flawed analysis of 'Digital Culture' strengths and weaknesses. He starts off with a bold statement, one that raises ominous questions about the article's accuracy and Lanier's own understanding of english:

All too many of today's Internet buzzwords— including "Web 2.0," "Open Culture," "Free Software" and the "Long Tail"—are terms for a new kind of collectivism that has come to dominate the way many people participate in the online world....
There's no escaping collectivism in our online world. If you search about most any topic online, for instance, you will likely be directed first to Wikipedia, a collective effort.

Hating on Wikipedia has turned into a pretty popular pursuit over the past couple of years: last year there was a nice run on "OMG I found an error that stayed online for several hours" articles, and I've had some harsh words to say about Wikipedia's devaluing of expertise in favor of citation. But none of that compares to Lanier's wrongheaded muddling of 'collaborative effort' and 'collectivism.'  Continue reading...

From the CNN article on the 2009 mid-terms:

Hoffman's loss certainly doesn't help these conservatives, but it is not a fatal blow, either. The battle for these activists was with the GOP leadership, and they won by successfully pushing GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava out of the race.

As I understand it, national conservative activists decided that a local Republican candidate was not conservative enough, recruited their own non-local candidate who entered the race, and attacked the local Republican candidate.

The Republican candidate recognized that her base was split down the middle, and withdrew from the race -- then endorsed the Democratic candidate. The Democratic candidate won.

I get the idea that this is an ideological victory, but what they did is not actually that difficult: they torpedoed a candidate by splitting her voting block. I guess that's what purges and in-group battles for control are all about, but hey. Am I missing something here?