The Next Renaissance

In his keynote address at the Personal Democracy Forum 2008, Douglas Rushkoff points out that there is in fact nothing personal about democracy. Rather, it is about transcending the self and acting collectively. Sadly, even though the social media tools we use cede central authority to decentralized groups and give us a way to participate in small ways, we tend to miss the real opportunity to reconfigure how democracy operates (cf. the first Renaissance). The opportunity is not to blog about politics, but rather to reclaim our role as citizens who participate in the creation of the society in which we want to live:

If Obama is indeed elected the first truly Internet-enabled candidate, we should take him at his word. He does not offer himself as the agent of change, but as an advocate of the change that could be enacted by people. It is not for government to create solar power, for example, but to get out of the way of all those people who are ready to implement solar power, themselves. Responding to the willingness of people to act, he can remove regulations developed on behalf of the oil industry to restrict its proliferation.