Iran (along the avenue)

What a mess, right?

The flurry of internet indignation over the alleged corruption of democracy in that theocratic state was truly something to behold.

Hordes of tweeters were "Tehraning" (changing their twitter status to indicate they were in Tehran so that Iranian security officials would get confused and then... what, get confused and hand over political to the mobs in the street?) in an honest attempt to make things better for protesters.

There were calls to action by bloggers too, trying to get the word out and raise their voices on behalf of Iranians subjected to media blackouts.

And, of course, the tragic death of 26-year-old student Neda Agha-Soltan caught on video and posted to youtube within hours of the actual event sent a ghastly ripple through cyberspace.

For me, it was that moment - the moment I chose not to watch the final moments of a person with whom I would have likely identified if I had ever met - that the democratic impotency of the internet came fully into view.

Here's where you point out the irony that I'm saying this on blog. Good. Now let's move on.

Social networking, for all it's utility, is not action. It's not even a good alternative to action. It has become a surrogate to action that deceptively makes us feel like we're doing something by expressing ourselves and spreading awareness. It's not enough for people to wake up and recognize all the awful stuff that's going on right this second: we have to actually do something about it.

So, the internet was supposed to be this big deal for democratizing the world. Just like TV and radio before that. Did it work? I don't know. It probably did something, but it probably did a lot of things people weren't expecting. Along with mediatized democracy came homogeneity, which is at odds with our precious individualism. With the publishing ability of the internet, the rise of the blogger, citizen journalists, twitterers, etc., we face a democratic model in which all we ever do is vote.

Democracy is good. We need it. It works. But it isn't the endgame. After you talk, debate, disagree, vote, concede you have act. JL Austin tells us that words do things, that they actually perform an action; but there are limits to this. I would revise his thesis in light of information communication technology (which takes words out of a context of live performance and puts them into something entirely novel, or completely primal, depending on who you ask) and say that words make (this distinction will leave francophones a little frustrated, I expect).

Let's make a promise: do something democratic that doesn't involve a computer. Try to reimagine democracy as more than an attitude or a feeling or a series of keystrokes.

If you really want to help Iran tweeting and blogging and getty uppity in your living room (or cubicle) are good ways to start. But don't forget the follow-through...

...this is Q (sorry, but I couldn't resist).