Time's Fool

INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE! (?) Editor's Note in 7/22/02 InformationWeek: "Indeed, blogs have great potential for personal productivity in the workplace as well as idea sharing and collaboration across boundaries." Of course, the term, "cooptation," comes easily to mind in this context. (My old organizational sociology professor, Phillip Selznick, first dramatized this term for me --in its meaning of "To neutralize or win over (an independent minority, for example) through assimilation into an established group or culture: co-opt rebels by giving them positions of authority. "--in his book, "TVA And The Grassroots".) "Expropriation" might be a more apt term for what's going on. Or, evaluating the process most neutrally, simply "appropriation". The "underground", or the "outsiders", have always been a major source of both cultural energy and formal variety for societies under environme

Do thoughts have shapes? Are they structured, with distinct forms? Can we describe the forms of our thought? How? Do we naturally describe them? Or doesn’t the formal description of our thoughts come naturally to us? Linear? Direct and straightforward? Sharp and to the point? Or blunt, or vague, or ambiguous, multi-textured, or like a tapestry? Or a web. Back and forth, to and fro. Circular? Meandering? Treelike, branching? Fractal? Is to speak of thoughts having shape a metaphorical way of speaking? Or is it a literal way of speaking? Do thoughts literally take shape in our minds, in our speech and writing? Take form? Do thoughts take shape in discourse? Are the forms of discourse the shapes of thought? Is narrative a different shape of thought from argument? Is description a different shape of thought from explanation?