Internet and Politics: A Pythagorean Fairy Tale?
On the last day of the conference on Internet & Politics, perspectives for a networked democracy was explored by speakers whose differing backgrounds made for an unusual and unique mix. Surprisingly, a coherent picture emerged which not only raises questions as to the appropriateness of combining the Internet and politics, but which serves as a critique against the likes of the "Californian Ideology" and like other hyper-utopians.
James Fishkin, giving a presentation on Experiments in tele-democracy - The public opinion poll tries out new models of deliberative polling, attempted to illustrate a new way for using an old technique for bridging the distance that is apparent between rulers and the ruled in a democracy. While the attempt deserves merit, it does not change the hitherto accepted premise that democratic politics is a universal axiom that is not in need of change; instead, it reinforces the view that applied technology merely enhances the potential that exists.
It was Israel Rosenfield's talk on Psychology and the Internet - New forms of disembodied selves that opened a challenge to popular notions about the Internet. Unlike the vast majority of people who mouth cliches about "revolutionary" changes, and feel that we are living on the threshold of history and the dawning of a new era (as exemplified by the fact that everything now needs the prefix "post" attached to it), Rosenfield boldly asserts that what is happening in society is nothing new and has been going on for at least two thousand years.
The idea that the Internet has created a "new" sense of freedom is rejected by Rosenfield, who dismisses this as nothing more than a myth. If anything, the Internet has become the walls of our personalized prison cells. The Barlowian propaganda that aspects of our physical self, for example sex and race, are not important on the Internet, shows how unfree and insecure net users really are: they feel a need to hide themselves and communicate behind an aurora of anonomonity. It is not freedom but an expression of insecurity. Even more than that, it's a form of suppression - a suppression of a person's individuality.
At the core of Rosenfield's psychological analysis of "cyberspace" is what he terms the out-of-body character with which the Internet is identified. What makes the Internet so appealing to many is that it helps us to realize the age-old dream of expanded consciousness and the desire to transcend our physical selves. In essence, it's the reralization of Hegel's concept of the absolute mind. Put in another way, total abstract knowledge is achieved, in where we are united as one with the cosmos. This paradigm is what lies at the very heart of western civilization, philosophy, and religion: the need to break free from the physical to the metaphysical. Christianity calls this heaven; John Perry Barlow calls it the "new home of mind". Subsequently, magic takes on an important role. The idea of magic in the days of old was explained through divine miracles, such as the virgin birth of Christ. In the age of the Internet, it is the feeling that everything is possible and can be achieved.
Rosenfield warns that such a condition, if it were allowed to be taken to extremes, leads to neurosis and mental breakdown, the kind of which currently suffered by those from WIRED magazine. As human beings, there is an innate drive to deal with others physically; we can't live in a world of abstraction. What is more, we fail to appreciate the importance of our bodies. Our mental health depends on external stimuli (the use of the body), and unless we satisfy this physical need, our brain will not function. It is no different than our physical need for nourishment. In the Interest of science, Barlow et al should try an experiment: take no food and water for a month, and then send us an e-mail and let us know how things are in the cosmos of the absolute mind.
The way in which politics comes into the equation is that its nature ends up being totally incompatible with that of the Internet. Rosenfield points out that at the core of the human condition is the problem of violence. Politics, through the vehicles of legislation, aims to reduce and limit this violence. For this reason, the Internet and politics can't possibly be mutually compatible, since the physical aspect of life and living can't be ignored. As Rosenfield concluded, because the Internet and politics don't mix, there is no use in wasting our time and fooling ourselves into thinking that they can.
Walter van de Velde, speaking on The search in the Internet - Agents, able to learn, organize the flood of data took a diametrically opposing approach in his analysis in the perspectives for the networked democracy. He believes that the Internet has potential for democracy, but this potential has to be developed. His observations share many of the attributes of Rosenfield's analysis, namely that the physical aspect of political processes can't be denied. At the core of his argument is that networks connect people, not computers.
Unlike speakers from the previous days, who have either regarded the Internet as a passive medium or a medium with no inherent characteristics of its own, van de Velde considers computers to be an active medium. The successful amalgamation of Internet and politics, he stresses, is dependent on encouraging the "information push" aspect of the Internet, in where the information comes to us rather than have us go to the information. However, there is a danger with this, which van de Velde failed to consider: we are already bombarded by information push in the form of advertising. Democracy, consequently, could very well end up becoming further dominated by ad-men and image makers.
In spite of this, van de Velde sees democratic technology developing along lines that replicate the physical world. As a result, real-time interaction is unimportant and virtual reality, already dying, is likewise of no consequence. He concludes, therefore, that the Internet will take into account a co-habitual, mixed reality, which will most likely be developed within the next ten years.
The morning session of the last day of the conference ended with Benjamin Barber who raised the issue of the threat that commercialization of the Internet brings to politics in his speech Technology for what? The Internet for whom? policy's primate in implementing the new technologies. He started out by making the observation which all speakers had thus far failed to bring to the fore: computers are fast, democracy is slow. He also drew a direct connection from the commercial exploitation of the Internet to that of political influence. According to Barber, the economic process of synergy that has been taking place in the world is just a polite term for what is really going on, that is, the establishment of monopolies, which in itself is a polite reference to uniformity which, after all is said and done, is just another word for censorship. In other words, the trends toward the establishment of monopolies that is presently underway is nothing more than plain commercial totalitarianism. Hence, democracy is doomed unless true change is initiated - and initiated soon. As far as Barber sees it, change must start first with politics first, and not technology.
What is of interest to note is that all speakers, although exploring perspectives for a networked democracy from widely different angles, have one element that is common to all: numbers. For Fishkin, public opinion polls is nothing more than what any statistical activity ends up being - a game of numbers; Rosenfield's out-of-body character of the Internet is a reflection of Plato' view of the universe, which in its totality was purely mathematical; van de Velde's democratic technology falls in line with the mathematical consideratiuons pertaining to the role of information and information access; and finally, Barber's warning of the threat of monopolistic capitalism is nothingh more than a critique of an economic system that can be best described as simply a money and numbers game. Without a doubt, if Pythagoras were alive today (that is, if he really is not John Perry Barlow in disguise), he would be as happy with the Internet as a pig that wallows in shit.