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Agoraphobia
- University of Illinois Press
- Chapter
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nology. As such, it takes three forms: oral (the oAgora), electronic (the eAgora), and textual (the tAgora). Each of these three venues operates according to its own dynamics for creation and transmission, but the root correspondences between the first two—the home environments for OT and IT—are striking and important (Agora Correspondences). L Agora Correspondences As explained in each of the three involved nodes—the oAgora, the tAgora, and the eAgora—our discussions of these verbal marketplaces and principal mediatypes follows a mirroring logic. Each section within a node is explicitly matched to corresponding, parallel sections in the other two nodes. The purpose of this structural strategy is to highlight the comparisons and contrasts (Three Agoras ) that constitute the major subject of the Pathways Project (Getting Started). The following table lists the section titles, with (in the wiki) anchored links to the relevant section in each of the three nodes. In the spirit of the Project, of both the wiki-website (Wiki) and the morphing book (Morphing Book), this interactive list offers yet another way to navigate available contents. Agora Correspondences oAgora tAgora eAgora Genus and species Genus and species Genus and species Word-markets Word-markets Word-markets Public, not proprietary Proprietary, not public Public, not proprietary The evolutionary fallacy The evolutionary fallacy The evolutionary fallacy Five OT word-markets Five TT word-markets Five IT word-markets No real authors Real authors No real authors Five nonauthors Five real authors Five nonauthors oAgora sharing and reuse tAgora sharing and reuse eAgora sharing and reuse Variation within limits Verbatim means no variation Variation within limits The analogy to language The contrast to language The analogy to language Recurrence, not repetition Repetition, not recurrence Recurrence, not repetition Built-in “copyright” Imposed copyright Built-in “copyright” Survival of the fittest Survival of the “fixed-est” Survival of the fittest L Agoraphobia The online Merriam Webster English dictionary7 defines agoraphobia as an “abnormal fear of being helpless in an embarrassing or unescapable situation that is characterized especially by the avoidance of open or public places.” Does this phenomenon apply to our three agoras—the oral, textual, and electronic Agoraphobia . 41 marketplaces (Agora As Verbal Marketplace)—that lie at the basis of the Pathways Project (Agora Correspondences)? Can a person be phobic about media dynamics? Before we start . . . Let’s offer a trial answer to these questions before we begin to address the issue of agoraphobia in detail. In short, for well-indoctrinated citizens of the tAgora, steeped in texts as the primary vehicle for communicative exchange, the oAgora and (to an everdecreasing extent) the eAgora represent “the other.” In broad terms, most of us reading this book or clicking through this wiki don’t suffer from tAgoraphobia, simply because the textual medium is so familiar and so comfortable. It’s the major marketplace in which we live and work and think. There are certainly text-based activities with which we’re uncomfortable: some of us fear the writing of reports or seminar papers, some are anxious about spreadsheets, others enervated over the prospect of poring over long and complex books. Nonetheless , the tAgora remains—at least for the moment—our “home field,” the default arena for the kinds of culturally driven knowledge-exchange we practice on a daily basis. Even when we use the web, we’re often simply creating more texts. Not so within the oAgora, where most of us lack fluency. In an unfamiliar environment that requires an ability to navigate networks, page-turners (or screen-scrollers) like us are mostly lost. And, as an easily threatened and technologically parochial species, what we don’t understand we characteristically either ignore or devalue, summarily pronouncing it outside (or even beneath) our attention. OT seems opaque, so we denigrate it as an inefficient technology. Dealing with an indecipherable reality by denying its existence or declaring it primitive, inaccurate, or just plain flawed—these amount to “textbook” symptoms of oAgoraphobia. We do much better—better by the week, in fact—with the new “other” of the eAgora. We’re already getting accustomed to the strength and power of the electronic network, already gaining some fluency and know-how in the languages associated with this emerging verbal marketplace. We’re still flummoxed by its inherent plasticity and array of options, of course, often being content to copy our static text files straight to a website and consider the job done, or to employ one crude but familiar eTool when a more useful tool...