[image from matthewfield]

Chapter 12 is covered by Luke DeMoss as part of our Group Blogging Project discussing the book Flickering Pixels by Shane Hipps. If you need a quick overview to what Flickering Pixels is about, please go here.

A very simple summary of this chapter is that Hipps discusses the idea of intentional communities, and how many of them have failed due to our need for individualism. He also mentions the idea of virtual communities making conflict a bigger issue…no one knows how to deal with conflict, they can just ignore it online and seclude themselves.

Hipps starts off the chapter talking about intentional communities and how most don’t work. He explains that the reason they don’t work is because of our need to be individuals. The way this is presented in the book, seems like this is a big problem that we have in our society. I don’t totally agree. Being independent individuals…at least to some degree is a very healthy, biblical thing. Although I don’t fully agree with the way Hipps chose to present this idea, I do agree that there is a definite need for balancing our want for independence.

The other thing that I found interesting in this chapter was how Hipps described online communities/relationships and how they were messing up our ability to do things like resolve conflict. While seclusion is always a possibility with technology, I don’t think that being involved in technology directly causes a lack of conflict resolution. In fact, I have seen technology assist in conflict resolution on many occassions. I think our definition of a “real” relationship is changing big time, and calling things done over the internet, not real isn’t going to be true anymore.

Overall, although I didn’t agree with the presentation of everything in this chapter, I do think Hipps brings up some good points that should cause us to pause and evaluate how much balance we have in our life. Rhett Smith is one of many great examples, take a look at this post back in November about his goal towards having a healthy balance of online vs. offline interaction. The answer isn’t leaving technology, but just having a good balance.

What do you do, to not just be a speck in the huge crowd of online communities, to engage the online community while also engaging offline? Share your experiences.