On the "tyranny of the social"

There's an interesting piece in the Times "Week in Review" section today, called The Death of the Cyberflaneur. It locates the evolution of the internet--from its earlier days, as a place of wandering exploration, to its current structure, which is highly deterministic and commercially driven--in the longer history of the "flaneur," the 19th century wanderer who "did not have anything too definite in mind," as he strolled the streets of Paris, observing, sometimes narrating, the rich sensory experience he perceived there.

The key challenge here--to the celebration of collaboration that we've lately been engaged in--is "this idea that the individual experience is somehow inferior to the collective"; it's an interesting take on "the tyranny of the social" that I think we might explore more fully together….