Are Communities Self-Centred?

On Friday, I read Jen Zingsheim's tweet reporting the conflict between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia had developed into full-on war.

“This is big,” I thought. “While everyone on Twitter only writes about iPhones and the latest niche geek conference, Russia is further raising tensions in the world. Why does no one care?”

Nathan Gilliatt suggested the salience of issues on Twitter relate to the location of users. For instance, the recent earthquake in California got a lot of discussion because there are a lot of people on the ground there. Without many users in Georgia, there won’t be much discussion.

It took me a while to realize that communities exist around specific interests, like iPhones and conferences and that people call their communities “fishbowls” for a reason.

Are communities self-centred? Possibly. But self-centredness is what gives communities their motivation in the context of the ingroup-outgroup dichotomy and helps develop their specialized knowledge.

I’m sure individual community members have unique perspectives, but en masse, they stick to what they have in common.

The idealist in me thinks the group horizon should be able to expand beyond its limited world view and should shift its attention to important issues when it matters.