Nerds Unite!
July 29, 2010 12:06 pmPicture a small band of socially awkward “techies”, graced by unabashed enthusiasm for a technology of obsession, rising the Vulcan Finger Split salute in perfect solidarity.
This is the glory of the modern technology “User Group”, all the power of the Black Panthers and as graceful as a local church congregation.
Every once in a while I forget how big of a nerd I am, but every time I return to the user group setting and find myself completely enthralled in a discussion of software check boxes, the future of the internet, the rise and fall of Microsoft, and the next evolution of digital whatever… I know I am being myself, and it feels really good.
I actually facilitate and participate in a variety of “User Group Meetups” focused on everything from internet technologies to creative writing, and I love it.
There is something special for me about these types of meetings, they are beyond mere affinity and yet they are focused on something in common that draws everyone outside of themselves to share information, expertise, and knowledge in such a way that the entire community is lifted and in so doing a greater movement is supported.
I recently watched a small documentary entitled MacHeads that took a tongue in cheek fanboy look at the infamous subculture of Apple computer worshipers.
Macheads
Director: Kobi Shely
This film went through the typical history of the modern PC revolution and followed out a few personalities as they travailed the ups and downs of Mac loyalty through the recent decades of iEverything coming to the masses.
But towards the end of the film, the conversations and focus took a peculiar inward turn to highlight the stalwart role of the “User Group” in preserving Apple through the tough times and the strange obsolescence of such groups in the good times.
It is hard to appreciate now just how vital a local user group was in the pre-internet era. There was a time when access to knowledge was limited to printed literature, perhaps a few video tutorials; but the majority of the learning and sharing happened in these user groups of embodied presence.
A few of the veteran Mac users who founded the original user groups spoke of their now defunct status with a sense of loss that I do believe is more profound than simple nostalgia. Once the users were connected online and the information flowed freely between servers, meeting lost its point… and communities were slowly disbanded without any justifiable purpose. All the information is online, so why bother getting together…
…with the internet I have the concern that people go out, they find their answer, and then they don’t come back, they don’t build a community of lasting connections. It will be different, it won’t look like what it used to look like.
~Mac User and Founder of now disbanded User Group of 15 years
…the internet killed us, I was losing that sense of human contact because you are meeting people that you would never have an opportunity to meet otherwise. When you go to Google to find an answer to a question, all you find out is the answer to that question, very difficult to get that random connection and information that you had no idea existed but it will change your life as soon as you hear about it.
~Mac User and Former User Group Member
I think the community is bigger than ever, but it is in a different form because it is all online. There are so many community websites, forums, and blogs…
…what the hell is a Mac community, there is kindof no need for a Mac community, I think it would be cool if there was one.
~Cool young new Mac users
It is very interesting to see these types of conversations compound on top of each other. The old users have seen something of a glory moment of solidarity that they now long for and the new users know something is missing that they can’t quite put their finger on.
I think there is something else to consider here, and I find this especially poignant. These people are not Luddites, iconoclasts of technology, or scoffers of progress. These are all people on the front lines of engaging technology in all walks of life, and yet they experience a loss with the success of their pursuits. A good idea can be taken too far and push into territory that should remain pure.
I have discovered a litany of modern thinkers that have lamented this seriously enough; Wendell Berry, Marshall McLuhan, Steve Talbott, Maggie Jackson, and Albert Borgmann to name a few.
Many of these authors push beyond the mere practicality of physical meetings and the pragmatic utility of why it is good for us to be physically present with each other, and into a discussion of something that is rooted much deeper inside the human need for communion and our spiritual need for embodied connectivity.
C.S. Lewis still describes for me with profound insight the practical first step of communion in the Body of the Church, the original holy user group.
Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
You mentioned casually in your last letter that the patient has continued to attend one church, and one only, since he was converted, and that he is not wholly pleased with it. May I ask what you are about? Why have I no report on the causes of his fidelity to the parish church? Do you realize that unless it is due to indifference it is a very bad thing? Surely you know that if a man can’t be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighborhood looking for the church that “suits” him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches. The reasons are obvious. In the first place the parochial organization should always be attacked, because, being a unity of place and not of likings, it brings people of different classes and psychology together in the kind of unity the Enemy desires. The congregational principle, on the other hand, makes each church into a kind of club, and finally, if all goes well, into a coterie or faction. In the second place, the search for a “suitable” church makes the man a critic where the Enemy wants him to be a pupil. What He wants of the layman in church is an attitude which may, indeed, be critical in the sense of rejecting what is false or unhelpful, but which is wholly uncritical in the sense that it does not appraise—does not waste time in thinking about what it rejects, but lays itself open in uncommenting, humble receptivity to any nourishment that is going. (You see how groveling, how unspiritual, how irredeemably vulgar He is!) This attitude, especially during sermons, creates the condition (most hostile to our whole policy) in which platitudes can become really audible to a human soul. There is hardly any sermon, or any book, which may not be dangerous to us if it is received in this temper. So pray bestir yourself and send this fool the round of the neighboring churches as soon as possible. Your record up to date has not given us much satisfaction.
~Screwtape
The Screwtape Letters
Author: C. S. Lewis
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