Let’s look into the metaphor of the World Wide Web and its dark implications. Why does a spider spin a web? What is the web’s sole purpose? To trap bugs and flies so that the spider can eat them! Who is this one spider creating our web? Or are we all spiders creating our own webs? It is in the nature of things to have a natural hierarchy, within the animal kingdom. But what happens when spiders eat other spiders, does this seem natural?The trap may come as a perfect surprise to the fly. Or perhaps the web is shiny and looks like it would be sticky and sweet, desireable to eat. Once the fly is trapped, it will see its fate coming. The spider will hurry over and paralyze its victim, and slowly drain the life force out…
Certainly the librarians think twice about the sticky sweetness of the web. And look at what the head of the Americal Library Assocation says about blogs in Revenge of the Blog People!
Spiders eat spiders all the time.
Another metaphor to look at perhaps would be, of course, the Rhizome as described by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus — might be interesting for Geography students… Metaphors and analogies are helpful, but as Harraway said in her seminar at McGill a few weeks ago, they can be big liars (though inevitable ones)… To me, using metaphors in social theory or science is acceptable and useful, as long as one is transparent about the assumptions and presuppositions hiding behind these constructions and their implied conclusions.
– Sophie (from Civilization & Environment seminar)
[edited to remove spaces so the links would appear correctly–administrator]