William Cavanaugh on Virtual Community

Great quotes from William Cavanaugh:
"White kids in Illinois can listen to reggae music and feel themselves in solidarity with the struggles of poor blacks in Jamaica. As Vincent Miller points out, however, such types of 'virtual community' tend to reduce community to disembodied acts of consumption... Concrete suffering is abstracted from its context and offered as a commodity. No matter how much the listener feels in solidarity with others, virtual solidarity offers no concrete results. As Miller notes, 'This abstraction impedes the translation of ethical concerns into action, reducing ethics to sentiment. The virtual becomes a substitute for concrete political solidarity, or to put it another way, a fundamentally different act--consumption--is substituted for political action.'" (Being Consumed, page 50-51.)

Totally reminded me of some stuff Shane Hipps talked about at the NPC. All this stuff becomes more important when you think of it in terms of social action. It all comes alive.

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