Scary

In Google We Trust

As the internets have progressed over the course of the last decade we have found ourselves depending on searching more and more, and who has been a better partner than that great friendly company Google.

My own Google journey began with simple searches, but that quickly escalated. I found that I could add Alerts to keep me up to date. Next came those oh so handy maps to get where I needed to go. Then I started using Google for more of my research by searching books and later even scholarly papers. Next thing you know the list started spiraling out of control, news, video, geography, pictures, blogs, shopping, scheduling, and the list goes on. Some have even gone so far as to create a Church of Google.

Google has it's fingers in almost every aspect of the user realm in the technological sphere of influence. But there was something missing until quite recently. Finally Google has decided to take up the mantle of secular power as well. With the new Google Public Policy blog you can hear the positions of our rising technological overlords in the the political arena.

In their own words:

"We hope this blog will serve as a resource for policymakers around the world -- including legislators, ministers, governors, city councilmembers, regulators, and the staffers who support them -- who are trying to enact sound government policies to foster free expression, promote economic growth, expand access to information, enable innovation, and protect consumers"(link)

Is anyone else a little frightened at this development? Not only do they have most of my information on my servers, but now they are making "recommendations" to my government about how I ought to be treated.

Google Save us!

The Brookland Catholic Mafia

In one of my classes last semester we read about the concept of “netwar.” Contrary to what you might first guess, netwar does not deal with the internet, but instead with networks of people. Whereas conventional warfare is waged by clearly demarcated forces operating under a strict hierarchy, the networks that wage netwar have flat hierarchies and ambiguous membership. Thus, arresting a certain group of people will not destroy a network: interlocking groups will carry on the work, affiliated but unofficial members of the suppressed group will reform it elsewhere and new leadership will emerge. That’s the nature of a network. It’s robust, flexible, diverse and innovative, as a result of a web of ties which connect all sorts of people, with no clear head or even center.

Reading about such social networks, I was immediately struck by how apt this description could be fitted to the world of Catholicism. The Brookland neighborhood of Washington is filled with overlapping circles of Catholics. There are so many Catholic schools, parishes, institutes, orders, men’s and women’s houses, Bible studies, and softball leagues that everybody knows everybody within a degree or two. It’s really a funny thing. Now I must confess, I have been tempted on occasion to bring together all these groups under one great umbrella, for a single purpose (usually undetermined). It would be a formidable group indeed, with connections all over the place and the ability to recruit members from a variety of sectors; it would have lots of energy and talent, if only these could be harnessed in a single direction. But then I realize that part of what makes the Brookland Catholic Mafia - as it has occasionally been called - a great thing is that it is a network, that it's diverse and flexible in a way that no single organization could be.

Switching from the framework of national security to that of ecclesiology, I see that we in fact do have a single purpose which unites us: to glorify Christ Jesus and to make Him known to all men. It is nothing less than the mission of the Church, into which we have all been baptized.

So as much as I'm tempted, I won't make a grand call for a meeting at the Quincy house, like a gathering of Resistance leaders during World War II. I won't ask you to enlist your friends as members in some great coordinating organization. Instead, I share with you two words of exhortation. First, embrace this body, in all its messy confusion, for it is the Body of Christ. Strengthen the bonds of fraternal unity, as you are called and able. Second, invite others to share the life we live. I don't mean inviting someone from another Bible study to come to yours; I mean reaching out to those outside the network and drawing them in to whatever quirky corner of it you inhabit.

Perhaps you don't live in Washington. Perhaps this passing description of the Brookland Catholic Mafia means nothing to you. I assure you, there are networks of Catholics around the globe, most of them as ambiguous and confusing as ours, often with no clear head or center or membership. Find yours. But perhaps you're not Catholic at all. To you, I say welcome. The allies found under the banner of Christ are not temporary comrades but brothers in the greatest task mankind has ever known.