be the change you want to see in the world

Michel Foucault opens his famous The Order of Things with a fantastical taxonomy, derived from a Borges fable:

This book first arose out of a passage in Borges, out of the laughter that
shattered, as I read the passage, all the familiar landmarks of my thought - our thought, the thought that bears the stamp of our age and our geography - breaking up all the ordered surfaces and all the planes with which we are accustomed to tame the wild profusion of existing things, and continuing long afterwards to disturb and threaten with collapse our age-old distinction between the Same and the Other. This passage quotes a ‘certain Chinese encyclopedia’ in which it is written that ‘animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (1) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies’. In the wonderment of this taxonomy, the thing we apprehend in one great leap, the thing that, by means of the fable, is demonstrated as the exotic charm of another system of thought, is the limitation of our own, the stark impossibility of thinking that.

The great thing about social media is that there is room for the one and the many. My listing of categories on this blog is particular to me and me alone. I chose this taxonomy, and have christened it a “taxono me” because it is mine and mine alone. It makes sense to me, my life, my way of looking at things.

Further down the page is the cloud of deliciousness. The tags listed there are a hybrid taxonomy of all my bookmarks. It is made up of tags I chose and tags chosen for me by the larger group of people inhabiting the delicious space. It is a tagsonomy.

Out of the taxono me comes the tagsonomy. The particularity of the one is conditioned by the absorbing and “mashing-up” influence of the many.

Interestingly, nowhere in this formula is an authority of final appeal. Isn’ this the way it should be? Individual expression has its space preserved for it. The solitary blog and its taxono me is free and available to all, and the benefits we all gain from allowing the individual to speak, regardless of how nutty they may seem at the time - are realized. On the other hand, the tagsonomy swallows the individual, making it part of itself and adjusting, ever so slightly. But no one force hands down taxonomy in the new space of social media.

This is significant, and something the programmers and activists who are nurturing this space should be proud of and fight to preserve. It is a giving thing. A generous thing that preserves space for the one while never allowing the one a final say.

“Well, there is really something to be said for the
exception, assuming it never wants to become the rule.”

- F. Nietzsche
#76, Part II of Gay Science.

My partners at Catalyst are always cautious about my tendencies to invite participation in the online portion of ad campaigns for customers. You need to make sure your model doesn’t have big hole in it, and they are good at pointing out holes.

I think there is much to be gained by inviting your target audience to do more than stare. Be careful though, because, as this example shows, sometimes things don’t work out as intended. Chevy’s agency decided it would be a good thing to allow website visitors to make commercials for the Tahoe. Activists got wind of it and did their own thing, which entailed making video spots against the SUV format.

Check out some of the results…