Cognitive Surplus Reviewed

In his book review on Clay Shirky's new work "Cognitive Surplus", Paul M. Barrett finds that Internet missionaries can be terribly annoying. He reckons that part of the reason is that they are so correct. Broken old media businesses will change or die, younger audiences will not just read and watch; they must tweet, blog and update their status, preferably all at once. More broadly, digital networks are reshaping culture, economics, and politics. However, he criticises that web envagelists often seem self-righteous and oblivious to ambiguity. He concludes that this trait threatens to limit their appeal even to the already converted.

What distinguishes Clay's book from the recent wave of digital-cheerleading books is its ability to show how the medium is well-suited to serving social causes. The anecdotes lift the spirit, even for a reader who wouldn't dream of traveling across Europe based on digital reservations for crashing on the couches of complete strangers.

However, Paul argues that there is a certain sameness in the creativity and generosity Clay heralds. Everyone online seems inoffensive and vaguely progressive. "Because the social tools we now have can shape public speech and civic action," he generalises, "people who design and use them have joined the experimental wing of political philosophy." When did carpooling, admirable as it may be, become a branch of political philosophy?

Please find the original book review in the Bloomberg Businessweek.