[WikiEN-l] "Wikipedia Bans Scientology From Site" - Huffington Post

[stevertigo]

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 8:13 PM, Durova <nadezhda.durova at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hm.
> 31K, start-class
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Western_thought
> 79K, featured:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_Simpson
> That probably explains it, Fred.
> -Durova
>

Well, to be fair, "history of Western thought" has a number of problems in
its very premise that make it disinteresting for modern young people to deal
with:
1) It uses the "east west" dichotomy, which automatically attaches to it
certain qualitative assumptions and connotations about its distinctiveness
from "eastern thought."
2) Taking active participation in the cementation of such concepts in the
modern mind, when people really just want them obliterated and relegated to
a pre-hyperconnected world's history, is anathema to the emergent collective
mind.
3) And besides its a bit redundant; the concept of "western thought" is
historical and needs not be qualified as "history."
4) And worse, the word "history" innately implies that the concept that any
particularly "western" anything likewise has a similarly particular future,
which violates 2.

And anyway Bart Simpson is just plain freakin' timeless, regardless of his
novelty. Ah- the interesting dichotomy between relevant and historical
information, and (corollary) the dichotomy between the crusty old wiki
encyclopedia and the flashy new hyperintuitive one.

-Steve