Snowed In

I was just rereading my earlier post in which I admitted my “infatuation” with the OLPC project. The fact that I consider myself “infatuated” is a strike against my objectivity. You can’t be objective if you’re in love, after all.

But there’s some power in admission here. By admitting my bias, I entrust other people to keep me in check. It’s the stauts quo for ethnographic writing. Ethnographers include their story, and their point of view when they are “writing the culture”. It’s a way to be more honest, and thus make your work stronger.

These kinds of admissions are becoming more and more in vogue, with the blogging generation. It’s cool to write about the ups and downs of your super-hip life. You have power over your weaknesses and your foibles by owning them.

It’s kind of like Ulysses telling his shipmates to tie him to the mast while they pass the Sirens. He knows he is going to be biased in a bad direction, so admits it up front, and then trusts his community to keep him on the straight and narrow.

Smart fellow.