Taking every thought captive for obedience to Christ (2 Corinthians 10.5)

Disciplines
The Internet (again)
“This is the greatest time to be a curious person who wants to learn, and it is the greatest time to be a complete idiot.”

And the reason both of these are true is the Internet.

So argues David Weinberger in his apologia for the Internet in “Rethinking Knowledge in the Internet Age” (Los Angeles Review of Books, May 2, 2016). The Internet is often reviled for the amount of information it provides, and for the fact that a good bit of that information is masquerading as facts, when really it is little more than ill-informed opinion.

Still, the information is there, and it “is revealing both the power of our traditional ways of knowing and the fact that traditional knowing has always been a product of flawed humans going wrong and going right together.” Mr. Weinberger does not expect the Internet to help us achieve an overall consensus about things right, good, and true, as if using the Internet were just a matter of gathering, sorting, collating, and agreeing on all the available “facts.” Indeed, “if the internet has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that we will never agree about anything. For every fact on the internet, there is an equal and opposite fact. It doesn’t help that not every purported fact is a fact, or that facts tend to have multiple layers of truth. Facts simply are not going to play the role in building consensus that we had hoped.”

That sounds like a warning against depending on anything we might garner from the Internet. Mr. Weinberger is not unaware of that response and asks, “How, then, do we flourish now that we can’t reason ourselves back together?”

Put another way, how should we use the Internet, if we can’t trust it at face value?

The Internet has greatly expanded our choices for information, but this puts greater demands on us to sort through all this without being led astray. Mr. Weinberger suggests that we do well to seek out and participate in communities of like-minded thinkers who can help us sort through the information coming at us each day. He writes, “Knowledge and culture depend on like-minded individuals joining together and iterating over tiny differences. This is how the net works. This is also how traditional knowing works.”

Because “we think with tools” – books, white boards, calculators, pencils and paper – the Internet as a tool can greatly improve our thinking and the acting that derives from it. But we need to use the Net carefully and critically, and sharing with like-minded others can be a useful way of making sure we gain the value of the Net and avoid its pitfalls and snares.

The Internet allows us to forge networks of knowing, and Mr. Weinberger believes this is one of its great strengths: “Networked, collaborative understanding happens in posts, blogs, messages, tweets, and discussion threads...The networking of knowledge does not achieve the aims traditional knowing has set for itself. It is settled only within a community of believers – and not all communities of believers are right.”

But we need to make sure our chosen community is a reliable one. Communities that are angry and self-righteous in their view of knowledge will tend to make us angry and self-righteous as well. Communities that seek to be frivolous and funny will promote the same in us. Communities that major in things trivial, banal, and merely mundane will reinforce that tendency in us.

But communities that seek to realize more of the presence, promise, and power of the Kingdom of God might serve to make us better-informed and more consistent in our efforts to follow Jesus as He brings His Kingdom to reign on earth as it is in heaven.

I agree with David Weinberger when he insists, “Ultimately, knowledge’s only hope is for more and better humanity.” Better humans begin with the Kingdom turn to a life wholly devoted to King Jesus. And Kingdom citizens and ambassadors, joined together in communities of all kinds, hold great potential for turning our weary world rightside-up for Jesus.

At The Fellowship of Ailbe, we’re forging a community of like-minded Kingdom-seekers, and we invite you to join us in making good use, not only of the Internet, but of all creation, and the whole counsel of God in His Word, as we seek to realize more of the presence, promise, and power of the Kingdom of God.

For reflection
1.  How would you describe your use of the Internet at this time? Are you making the best use of it for the Kingdom that you can? Explain.

2.  What do you think makes for a good “Kingdom-seeking” community?

3.  What can you do to help others begin making good Kingdom use of the Internet?

Next steps: This week, introduce some of your friends to The Fellowship of Ailbe, and invite them, by registering for The Week, to join you in this Kingdom-seeking community.

T. M. Moore

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