Networks of Dead People

Most of the members of my network are dead.

I raised this idea in a Sept 19 Ustream session (audio from 28:00) and promised to blog about it. At first, the concept was gently ridiculed (“dead people don’t answer email”), but gradually participants began to realize that since most of what we know about others are just their artifacts anyway (particularly if we’ve only met them online), we may indeed be networking with those we read, many of whom lived long ago. (I thought it was particularly important for Stephen Downes to understand this, since his network includes so many wonderful philosophers, like Wittgenstein, about whom he writes as if they were still around.)

If we say that our networks are made up of ties we have with people, then my knowledge (which I define much more deeply than is often done in this class) is dependent on many people who are no longer living. If we say that networks are comprised of hubs at the center of their own networks, I can see Jefferson, Voltaire, Rousseau, Adams, Madison as hubs. If we say they are influenced by power laws, you betcha. Scale free? Definitely. Made up of connectors and those who are highly influenced? Uh huh. Emphasizing weak ties? Oh sure (although I think Jefferson and Madison’s families were close, geographically and as friends).

Dead people have the following advantages in a network:

Less Noise
Their ideas are often well-indexed (though perhaps not prior to the 18th century), and their writing better focused. I do not have to use Search for blog posts or deal with a 404 error when they move something. I don’t have to read what they had for breakfast while looking for something important. (Although it is more fun to know what Thomas Jefferson had for breakfast than, say, Andrew Keen.)

Prior Vetting
Many famous dead writers have had their work repeatedly analyzed within the context of various historic eras, providing not only access to secondary analysis but a history of the application of their ideas.

Context for “New” Ideas
Whenever the Salesmen of our age try to sell us something as new and different, distinct and unique, dead people in the network can provide good balance and a healthy dose of skepticism.

Reminders of our Humanity
If their lives have been researched and studied as well as their work, they remind us of our own humanity. Although all public work is what the author wants us to see, historical biography often reveals what they didn’t want us to see. This reminds us that even great thinkers of the past were subject to the same vices and failings as ourselves.

Their disadvantages are:

They don’t answer email.
Well, perhaps not, but neither do many live people I know.

They don’t have the current research.
Very true, and yet current research is constructed within our current social context. Thus it only has enduring value in historical perspective, which is what your dead people provide: a context for that new research.

They aren’t going to come out with anything new.
Again, many live people don’t either, and every new reading or interpretation does bring something new to the conversation.

They don’t Twitter.
OK, you’ve got me there.

The false assumptions are:

They can’t talk to you.
They don’t talk to you personally, perhaps, but they do talk to you. All of the past talks to you if you are the type of person who enjoys reading and thinking.

They won’t answer.
As with live people, if you pose a question appropriate to the source, you will get a good answer; otherwise you won’t.

We don’t need them here.
The field of educational technology in particular has Marshall McLuhan as a vital network member, to name just one.

Contrary to the Pirates of the Caribbean mentality, dead men do tell tales. When I told a colleague, “what they said was: dead people don’t answer email”, his response was, “no, but they do answer questions”. If we’re going to value meta-cognition as an intellectual skill, it would be good to acknowledge those ideas that help form our perspective, and cite our sources. Filling ones network with dead people will make it deeper, more sustainable, more holistic and more useful.

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