On 6 Jun 95, on the ECOFEM List, to Subject: Re: power communication, "Al
Rushanan TAL (904)487-1855" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, sought to explore
ways and means of enhancing the effectiveness of the Internet as a tool for
change. He wrote:
"(Vice President Al) Gore is on the right track - the best ideas
come from front line folks, not the elites."
That may be one of the reasons why the Internet may never be a source of real
change. By definition, the Internet is exclusively the playtoy of an
elite...those with access to telephone, computer, modem, access provider, and
discretionary time and money (their own or their institution's). And that
elite's playtoy is the meta-playtoy of those who control "the _real_ net...the
techno/petro/chemical/nuclear/industrial global grid." So, when we speak of
the Net, we speak of a web within a web that is a toy within a toy of an elite
within an elite. Not real close to the front lines.
Mr. Rushanan continued:
"...So how can we use the Internet to address environmental issues without
being at each other's cyberthroats? Is there some kind of Code to help us
communicate constructively, freely, and openly without the burden of
'political correctness'? Is there a way we can talk to each other without
forming one new movement after another, all of which tend to become as
dogmatic and intolerant as religion? Is there any sort of scientific
method that can be applied to using this short-circuit, brain to brain,
emotion packed medium? (Help me, because I'm as bad as anybody with
flame bait.) If not, Internet will become as polarized as Congress."
One of the problems with attempts at dialogue via e-mail is the very fact that
it is completely impersonal and bereft of human touch. Dialogue occurs
between human beings who make a genuine effort at communicating with each
other, who make a continuous committment to _first of all_, truly listen to
what the other parties in the dialogue are saying and how they are saying it.
Dialogue occurs when human beings exchange information, not when computers
exchange data.
I have seen (and participated in) exchanges of verbal onslaught between people
that I know would not happen were the participants face-to-face with each
other. It wouldn't happen because either people would not talk in so crudely
brazen a manner to each other in person, or because one or the other of the
participants would have terminated the conversation long ago either by walking
away or punching the abuser in the nose. In cyberspace,it's easy to get away
with absurdly extreme conversational behavior simply because there are no
sanctions other than the kill button.
I've been screwing around with this medium for close to a year now and am on
the verge of being convinced that we who play in these cyberrealms have sold
ourselves a bill of goods as we strive valiantly to convince ourselves that
a "virtual community" is in reality the same thing as a real community and
neighborhood of flesh and blood people, warts and farts and all.
I don't know whether the Internet will ever evolve into an effective tool for
social, political, economic, or ecological action and activism. Such tools
work only in the real world, not the virtually concocted facsimile thereof.
Such tools work only when weilded by real people who know how to communicate
with other real people.
There's nothing wrong with polarization. Until the Internet becomes as
effective and efficient as Congress in manipulating and controlling the real
world and the real lives of real people, it will remain nothing but a
harmless, albeit noisy plaything of self-deluded pretenders to the throne and
other chambers and anterooms of power. Sort of a logical extension of
television; i.e., more pabulum for the inmates.
Finally, Al (Rushanan, not Gore) also wrote:
"(Is anybody doing a study on the benefits of Internet?)"
Of benefit to whom or what? All kinds of folks have done (and are doing) all
kinds of studies about how to turn the Internet into a cash cow. Check with
the folks at Microsoft. That thread will probably, ultimately and eventually
lead you all the way to, for starters, Speaker Gingrich and Senator Exon, Mr.
Al [EMAIL PROTECTED], and other nodes in the "global grid" noted
above.
I'd be more curious to know if any one is doing a study on the detriments of
the Internet. Sort of a cyberization of Jerry Mander's FOUR ARGUMENTS FOR THE
ELIMINATION OF TELEVISION. (He begin to undertake that himself in his book
IN THE ABSENCE OF THE SACRED: The Failure of Technology & the Survival of the
Indian Nations.)
Jeff Moebus ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
New Orleans, LA
