If it is one thing the World Wide Web has done it’s unify, whether it be for the negative or positive. There has been a partaking in global connection among the rich and famous and the poor and unknown alike. More specifically the California Ideology pinpoints how the strange mix of “technological determinism and libertarian individualism” (http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/2007/04/17/the-californian-ideology-2/) brought forth the information age as we know it today. This convicts one to go back to a verse found in The Gospel of Luke in the New Testament that aligns with the equality and inseparable reality the virtual class has to offer.
Jesus said in Luke chapter 14, verse 13, “but when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the lame, the crippled, the blind.” When Jesus was speaking (he taught in parables by the way) about the latter his whole point in this was to help those at the dinner table around him, especially the Pharisees, understand that the means of greatness in God’s eyes is not exalting yourself, but humbling yourself before others so that you might be exalted at the proper time. And the whole explanation was a metaphor of how God’s heavenly kingdom works and how humbling and emptying yourself as a servant to others here on earth can gain you favor as well. How this has significance to the virtual class: The web today is “The banquet thrown by a certain man who invites many guests”(Luke 14:16) and those guests are the largely populated unknown masses who try to unfortunately at times go against Jesus’ teachings and force their own exaltation for their “15 min. of fame”, what happens to them is a roll of the dice, but usually as described in Luke 14:8-9 they get about 2 minutes and that is it.
Now on the other side of this story is an interesting contrast between the Luke 14 and the virtual class. Since Jesus speaks of the banquet as a metaphor for God’s kingdom he also reports some who were invited made excuses for not coming (Luke 14:18-24), but with the World Wide Web in today’s society we see no thing such. From the hi-tech entrepreneurs to engineers to computer scientists we see them all flock to the internet, they are the guests who’s seat is seemingly supposed to be reserved, but because of the level-playing field you have many “lame and poor”, hastily trying to exalt themselves and sometimes winning out their case for exaltation, even if for a moment (when Social media trolls get the attention of a celeb or an social activist movement gets a large following).
I will say in closing that under the umbrella of the Internet, the virtual class of hipsters, captains of industry, specialists, and just normal citizens of the nations are truly all connected and it’s a quite wonderful and awesome thing to see from an optimistic point of view, sort of like a virtual heavenly kingdom in terms of the power to connect to people. Nobody is untouchable at this banquet just like at the banquet Jesus was at and the banquet that is God’s Kingdom he describes.
My Blog 