Last week I (sort of) joked that sites like Pinterest were declaring war on context. Nav, who is much smarter than I am, has a better argument.
If the free floating nature of 21st century ideas has divorced individual moments from context, the dangerous flipside of the situation is that things that are, by any measure, grossly wrong can seem okay. The history of images and language gets lost in a sea of alternate interpretations or no interpretation at all. University kids dress up in blackface. People talk of the end of racism and sexism. The market is only the choice for decent societies.
The urge of course, is the same urge as those lamenting the loss of print, or religion: if only we could get the good thing back. It’s a false hope and an unhelpful one, though. We can’t untangle history or undo the web. Pinterest, in literal or metaphorical form, is here to stay. But that’s not to say it’s a losing battle.
