Ten years of tech activism have taught us something uncomfortable: #mainstreaming crew carries the assumptions of forty years of #neoliberalism and #postmodernism, dressed up as unquestionable "common sense".
That common sense narrows imagination by training people to see society through individual competition, personal identity and market logic, while making collective responsibility, solidarity and shared ownership harder to recognize.
Challenge these assumptions and the response is blinded defensiveness or hostility. The problem isn't simply resistance to new ideas, it's that the dominant culture has made alternatives difficult to see, discuss or organize around.
Prod too hard and they retreat into their shells like snails!
Our #openweb native path is to build the grassroots cultures and social structures that can mediate this mess. We need to challenge the assumptions without allowing every disagreement to collapse into personal conflict.
We aren't here to endlessly accommodate #mainstreaming common sense. We're here to create the space and collective confidence to move beyond it.
The task isn't to mainstream the alternative. It's to rebuild the native culture that makes alternatives possible.
That's what #OMN and the #4opens are about.
