Intellektuellenalarm im Internet

Ich war ganz glücklich als am Mittwoch das Holzmedium “Die Zeit” auf postalischem Wege reingeflattert kam.  Twittern, Mails und Facebook machen mich müde nach einer Weile.

Heute las ich dann den Artikel “Das Netz als Feind – Warum der Intellektuelle im Internet mit Hass verfolgt wird” von Adam Soboczynski,im Feuilleton — immer ein Garant für hochgeistigen Spaß und gewagter Schreibe.

Der Titel an sich ist schon eine steile These, regt aber zum nachdenken an. Nach dem nachdenken dachte ich dann: These leider falsch. Weil zu pauschal. Und weil hier ein “Netz” als homogene Einheit hochstilisiert wird.

Der folgende Satz aus dem Artikel widerspricht leider doch dem reißerischen Titel, der Blogger doch recht schnell die “hysterische Reaktion” der Blogger in Gang setzen wird:

Überschrift und Unterzeile verlangen nach einer hysterischen Zuspitzung.

…und dank dem zugespitzen Titel finde ich dann auch schon 78 Kommentare auf der Zeit-Internetseite — etliche mit Hass gegen den etablierten, bezahlten Artikelschreiber.

Aber auch andere Kommentargoldstücke wie diese

Die etablierten Intellektuellen, wie der Artikelschreiber zeigt, werden genauso überflüssig in ihrer gesellschaftlichen Relevanz wie unsere ahnungslos in Ideologien verstrickten Politiker. Im neuen Raum des Wissens definiert sich Identität jetzt neu. Es gibt keine Trennung mehr dann von Exploration und Konstruktion. (Jeder erschafft sich durch seine Gedanken seine Wirklichkeit.) So wird die Unterscheidung zwischen Ich und Wir aufgelöst und wir treten aus einer Kultur der Macht und der gegenseitigen Ausbeutung ein in eine Kultur des Miteinanders.

Ach, so war das!

Ist es nicht großartig, dass das Internet eine Kommentargrundlage bietet, so dass sich Intellektuelle artikulieren können und “Hass” gleich entgegenschleudert bekommen — und dann, angefeuert von dem Blog-Mob, eine Grundlage für weitere Intellektuelle-Infragestellungsspielchen bekommen? Ohne Gegner haben doch die meisten Spiele keinen Sinn! Und ganz zynisch geantwortet: Der Autor Soboczynski, der 78 Kommentare und etliche Seitenklicks mehr hervorgerufen hat, dank seines schmissigen Titels, finanziert doch sicherlich ziemlich gut sein Intellektuellenauskommen.

Ich bleibe weiterhin Feuilleton-Fan, gerade weil ich solche Grundsatzdiskussionen mag. Und Intellektuelle erst recht! Wer sich von niedergeschriebenen Kleingeist-Kommentaren als Intellektueller angegriffen fühlt, ist vermutlich gar keiner.

Nach Shakespeare und Soboczynski könnte man antworten: “Geh doch in ein Intellektuellenforum!” Schade wär’s. Für mehr Intellektuelle in öffentlichen Debatten!

Becoming Obama — Workshop report

I had the chance to host a workshop this weekend. The title “Becoming Obama” just came into my mind like two weeks ago. And i finally presented was in a cloister in Rinteln — worth enough to mention. For intro look at my blogentry before.

We started “Becoming Obama” (unexpectedly) on a sunday morning — the last of the 2,5 conference days. So I was concerned about the 10 participants being exhausted. Plus there was another workshop on the “Grundeinkommen” (Basic income)  following mine, but they were flexible so that i could present the fully intented 2 hours.

So there was a tight last-day schedule and a freezy cloister: But under these circumstances, thanks to good preparation,  i still could change some agenda points (without the participants noticing it), created a mindmap less and could come to the points quicker. The participants worked out their flipchart-paper outside in the sun, in the cloister yard.

I got positive “quality feedback” from people I considered to be quite critical in the sessions before and I still feel energized by this (look at this entries posting time…). Really: There’s no better motivation than participants doing the tasks you thought about, working concentrated and had great output. Niko, host of the whole “Wissen 2.0” weekend said:

“It’s fascinating with all the influences — i may read the biography of Obama.”

This is the best compliment you can make on a workshop, as the design of a workshop should always make people want more — besides the secondary or tertiary aim to inform the participants. 

So what was the concept like? The workshop was introduced by a video and a Powerpoint-Karaoke. Then I facilitated a brainstorm what people connect personally to Obama (Agenda-Point “You and Obama”). Critics would call this method Rorschaching, thus projecting own personality on a different subject/person. But this method was intendet to introduce this workshop not on Obama facts but rather on a biography in general (s.b. “closing”)

After the warming-up, the core of the workshop lasted 45 minutes: Particpants read excerpts of various stations in Obamas career (In the room I created a spatial connection to Kenya, Chicago, Washington, Hawai, Indonesia).  I called it an “Obama Village”. If participants were already experienced, they could skim through the 2 Obama autobiographies or the full Wikipedia-entry on Obama’s policy and create a flipchart at the “freestyle-station”. Excerps from the autobiography were chosen by me on the criteria of being easy to read, as well as providing a good mixture of private stories and political ones (…the unpolitical is political!). Then, Participants presented them in drawn tag-clouds on flipcharts or mind-maps.

Closing: We relaxed with a Simpsons-Clip. I continued with a model on how to look on a biography — with the metaphor of a tree: The ant on top-branches can easily walk to the ground again. But it’s nearly impossible for an ant to go to a certain branch through the maze-like tree structure. Coincidentially a similar metaphor was used some hours after my workshop in the ending assembly of all 30 conference-attendants in an emotional video by Steve Jobs;

“Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

I closed my workshop with another emotional video, comprising the backwards/forwards idea in a biography, but also a “change message”.

If you wanna have the concept, please mail me. I am also opening a facebookgroup concerning the further development of “Wissen 2.0” workshop lines. Simply join it, if you want to know more.

The excerpts read in “Obama Village” part of the workshop were:

Washington: S. 46-49 (The Audacity…), S. 189 – 193 (TA)

Chicago: 348-352 (TA), S. 207-211 (Dreams from…)

Hawai: 23-27 (Dreams from…)

Indonesien: 271-276 (TA)

Kenya: 304 – 309 (Dreams from…)

“Becoming Obama” Workshop

After my first Workshop on the last weekend, I am preparing jus a short 2 hour workshop on “Becoming Obama”.

Yeah, just sounds like that usual Obama euphoric (indeed, I can understand that…), but that workshop is rather on how a biography shapes a life. And interactive: Participants shall find their own “biographical truth” and Obama is just a famous example, or rather “universal truths” in all biographies.

This workshop on an AIESEC-conference is in the frame of an “Education 2.0” workshop-line. So I make people discover their own truth — I hope it figures out that way.

I was always a biography fan and really found my own biography through that, rather than reflecting on my life directly. The Obama biography is really impressing in the mentioning of personal weaknesses, and I think it is great to know so much personal things about a world leader.

Some biographical excerpts (I am still selecting) will provide a content-basis, but I am trying not to force the workshop participants into a certain direction. There will be 25 min group work and afterwards sharing with the others about Obamas biographical reflections in Washington, Kenia, Hawaii, Chicago, Kenia.

Plus there are Youtube-Videos (total of 5 minutes)  and a Powerpoint-Karaoke as an interactive, funny start. And in the second half there’s a tagcloud speech (tagclouds, for having frequent words) for training speech-skills, but also the reflect the rhetoric and the possible background in the biography.

At the moment I still have a blurry idea about the red string of the workshop (esp. combining the rhetorics and the bio.). I hope to make up my mind the next days, and this is also a reason why I am putting this into blog-format.

Stay tuned for the output. Suggestions, ideas, comments, always welcome!