Last week, I mentioned a phenomenon which has seen a rise to power in recent years in this country -- one which I generically termed "Validation Through Democracy;" it's the idea that the larger the group to adhere to a given belief, the more likely that belief is deemed to be accurate.
In reading this week's New York Magazine cover story on the brilliant and hysterical Stephen Colbert, I see that he's coined a far better and more-clever term for this curiosity; he calls it "Wikiality" -- a reference of course to Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia which allows itself to be collectively edited by the masses.
Wikiality specifically refers to a reality which exists simply because enough people agree that it does.
To paraphrase Bo "The Bandit" Darville, Colbert makes the rest of us look like we're all running in place.
No comments:
Post a Comment