Seeing Anonymous primarily as a cybersecurity threat is like analyzing the breadth of the antiwar movement and 1960s counterculture by focusing only on the Weathermen.
Interpretation
The quote compares a limited perspective on a complex issue to viewing only a small part of a larger movement.
Yochai Benkler suggests that focusing solely on the cybersecurity threat posed by Anonymous neglects the broader social and cultural implications of their actions. Just as the Weathermen represent only a fraction of the antiwar movement and 1960s counterculture, reducing Anonymous to just a threat overlooks their role in the larger dialogue about digital rights, freedom of expression, and social justice.
In practice
In a discussion about digital rights and freedom of expression, one might quote Benkler to emphasize the complex nature of movements like Anonymous.
Over time, the welfare state has become dysfunctional in a surprising way. But in a way it became a victim of its own success: It became so successful at prolonging life, that it becomes financially unsustainable, unless you make major changes to things like retirement ages.
cause down the shore everything's all right
Leibniz endeavored to provide an account of inference and judgment involving the mechanical play of symbols and very little else. The checklists that result are the first of humanity's intellectual artifacts. They express, they explain, and so they ratify a power of the mind. And, of course, they are artifacts in the process of becoming algorithms.
Instantaneous and mass communication is the mother of mass naivety. Should we then lose hope? Is there any hope? But to lose hope is as dangerous as to nurture false hope. Where then can we find hope that is responsible?
The Hebrew Bible contains multiple provisions to ensure that no one would go hungry. The corners of the field, forgotten sheaves of grain, gleanings that drop from the hands of the gleaner, and small clusters of grapes left on the vine were to be given to the poor.
If I were a dictator, religion and state would be separate. I swear by my religion. I will die for it. But it is my personal affair. The state has nothing to do with it. The state would look after your secular welfare, health, communications, foreign relations, currency and so on, but not your or my religion. That is everybody's personal concern!
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