Positions, Comparison, and Contextualization

Positions, Comparison, and Contextualization

Merav Katz-Kimchi

Office for History of Science and Technology

UC Berkeley

Abstract:

This paper aims at historicizing and contextualizing American popular discourse on the internet during the 1990s. The first part explores two contrasting academic views including the “historical continuity” approach that sees the utopian discourse on the internet as a straightforward continuation of earlier discursive traditions, and the contextualist position that sets each discursive tradition in its own historical context.

Arguing that both approaches are relevant for comprehensively understanding the discourse on the internet, the second part historicizes this discourse by comparing it to earlier technological utopian discourses from the turn of the century (1880s-1930s) and to the utopian discourses accompanying the introduction of earlier communication technologies into American society including the telegraph, the radio, the telephone and television; the third part briefly hints at possible ways to contextualize contemporary discourse.

In the United States the process of assimilating the internet into daily life in homes and offices during the 1990s was accompanied by dramatic, loud, and often hyperbolic and enthusiastic discourse as regards personal and social life in the age of the Internet Revolution. Academics from across the humanities and social sciences sought to decipher and comprehend this discourse by relating it to earlier discursive traditions about technology. The first part of the article reviews a selection of these important and seminal attempts. In particular, it presents the historical continuity approach and the contextualist position. The former sees the utopian discourse on the internet as a straightforward continuation of earlier discursive traditions such as myth telling, the religion of technology, technological utopianism, and the relatively more recent 150-year old discourse on electronic communication technologies. By contrast, the latter argues for a thematic similarity between these discursive traditions and the discourse on the internet but seeks to understand each discourse in its own historical context.

Arguing for the relevancy of both these different approaches, the second part, relying on earlier scholarship, historicizes the discourse on the internet by comparing it to earlier technological utopian visions from the turn of the century (1880s-1930s) and to the utopian discourses accompanying the introduction of the telegraph, the radio, the telephone and the television into American society. It hints at the similarities and differences between these earlier discursive traditions and discourse on the internet. The third part suggests some possible ways to contextualize the utopian discourse on the internet, showing how it embodies contemporary ideals, ideas, and perceptions.

Part 1

1. The “Historical Continuity” Approach

Diverse authors from various academic disciplines responded to the enthusiastic and often hyperbolic discourse on the internet by trying to relate it to former discursive traditions, from the most general to the most particular. Sociologist Vincent Mosco interprets the discourse on the internet within the larger universal phenomenon of “myth telling” that sociologists see as an integral part of all human societies from the first human societies onward. He argues that this discourse is a collection of myths, or “seductive tales containing promises unfulfilled or even unfulfillable” (Mosco, 2005, 22). As such, like all myths, they provide routes to transcendence, ascribe meaning to human life, represent an important part of the collective mentality of the age, and render socially and intellectually tolerable what would otherwise be experienced as incoherence Mosco, 2005, 29).¹ In particular, Mosco discusses three powerful myths of cyberspace; namely, the ability to transcend time (the end of history), space (the end of geography) and power (the end of politics). He further argues that almost every wave of new technology since the mid- nineteenth century has brought with it declarations of (various positive and negative) Ends (Mosco, 2005, 117-127). Thus, overall, Mosco views the enthusiastic discourse on the internet as part of a wider phenomenon of “myth telling” in response to the unsettling event of the introduction of a new technology into society. In the same manner, and in a far-reaching interpretation of Leo Marx, David Nye, and James Carey, he argues that these myths promote a vision of the “technological sublime”; i.e. “a literal eruption of feeling that briefly overwhelms reason only to be recontained by it” (Mosco, 2005, 22).

Whereas Mosco sees no difference between the internet myths and those that went along with the introduction of nuclear power, the radio, the television and cable TV into society in general, other scholars have suggested that this discourse is part of a specific American tradition that is optimistic in its relation to technology and enthusiastic about its role in shaping human life. Historian Warren Susman commented that “[o]ne of the reasons [Americans] talk so persistently about the impact of media is because thinking and talking about its role, and about the role of technology generally, have become cultural characteristics” (Susman, 1984,257).

What exactly is this tradition or cultural characteristic? What typifies it? Where and when it is rooted?

Historian David Noble terms this tradition the “religion of technology” in his 1997 book and suggests that the contemporary [American] enthusiastic discourse about technology or “the present enchantment with things technological” is “a continuation of a thousand-year-old Western tradition in which the advance of the useful arts was inspired by and grounded upon religious expectations” (Noble, 1999, 3-4) Providing a Weberian argument as regards the Christian roots of contemporary technology, Noble focuses on religious transcendentalism that is at the heart of many techno-scientific projects.

Beginning in the twelfth and thirteenth century, the ideal of knowledge as preparatory to salvation served, for the first time in the history of the West, to bring the mechanical arts² (or later, technology) into the fold of philosophy by subsuming both under the same function. In effect, this ideological change defined both philosophy and the mechanical arts as a means to a higher end rather than as ends in themselves. The mechanical arts, therefore, like other branches of knowledge, were seen to serve a precise religious and historical function as an aid to recovery from the effects of original sin.

The true center of this original religious faith moved west to the United States and was expressed in American thought during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Since the late nineteenth century, and especially in the twentieth century with the growth of secularization, “the old religious themes, masked by a secular vocabulary and largely unconscious, continued subtly to inform [American technological] projects and perceptions” (Noble, 1999, 104). Noble discusses, for example, the quest for divine immortality and angelic-like freedom from bodily existence in the writing of pioneers and theoreticians of Artificial Intelligence and computing such as Marvin Minsky, Michael Heim and Michael Benedikt. Benedikt, for example, the influential editor of the first anthology on cyberspace, observed that the “almost irrational enthusiasm” for virtual reality fulfills the need “to dwell empowered or enlightened on other, mythic, planes.” Cyberspace, according to Benedikt, is the dimension where “floats the image of a Heavenly city, the New Jerusalem of the Book of Revelation” (Benedikt, 1991, 6, 15 in: Noble, 1999, 159-160).

Noble’s systematic depiction of expressions associated with the historical tradition of the religion of technology explains an important part of the dominant vocabulary, sets of metaphors, diverse aspirations, futuristic mentality, and millennial impulses concerning technology in contemporary American culture. James Carey and John J. Quirk aptly describe this vocabulary and mentality as containing an “orientation of secular religiosity that surfaces whenever the name of technology is evoked”, in particular in response to social crises and technical change (Carey and Quirk, 1989, 114). This secular religiosity, which many proponents voice without realizing they are doing so, has much in common with the American tradition that Howard Segal, in his seminal 1985 book, defines as “technological utopianism”.

Segal canvassed the rich cultural tradition of American utopian writings of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and identified a significant variant that he terms technological utopianism. He defines technological utopianism as “a mode of thought and activity that vaunts technology as the means of bringing about utopia”, i.e., “the perfect society” (Segal, 1985, 10). Segal demonstrates convincingly that this mode of thought was expressed in the popular writings of twenty-five American technological utopians between the 1880s and 1930s, as a response to the major industrial revolution that the United States went through at that time. It was also later expressed, especially after World War II, in the ways high-tech – broadly defined as computers, satellite communications, robotics, space travel, genetic engineering, etc. – promotes its products and ideology like prophecies, world’s fairs/theme parks and advertising (Segal, 1994).

Historically, technological utopianism is rooted in earlier European and American thought and notably in the utopian tradition (beginning in the sixteenth century) with its images of the perfect society, and in the science-based progressivism of the French Enlightenment that interpreted the scientific (and technological) “domination of nature to promise freedom from scarcity, want, and arbitrariness of natural calamity” (Harvey, 1989, 12).

At the core of technological utopianism is the belief in the inevitability of technological progress, and in technological advance as the ultimate and sole solution to many social and economic problems. In other words, among adherents of technological utopianism technology is seen as a panacea. Adherents of technological utopianism equate advancing technology with utopia itself. That is, utopia would be “a completely technological society, one run by and, in a sense, for technology” (Segal, 1985, 21).

In the group of earlier works written by technological utopians at the turn of the century (1880s-1930s), technology helps sustain a new order that is manifested in perfect cleanliness, efficiency, quiet, and harmony. Inhabitants of the various utopias would tame wind, water and other natural resources into electricity, considered at that time as an efficient and clean technology; they would live in megalopolises, i.e. “massive combinations of urban and suburban tracts covering mass areas” in “perfect comfort, contentment and happiness ever free of dirt, noise, chaos, want, and insecurity”.

The ethos of technological efficiency shapes the values of earlier technological utopias. For example, utopians call for large, heterogeneous communities rather than small, homogeneous ones because they believe that large communities offer the best opportunities for the kinds of contacts and friendships that spawn cooperation, and cooperation is seen as fostering efficiency (Segal, 1985,19-32).

In the loosely connected group of later works associated with a completely different institutional and social setting³, technological utopians like Alvin Toffler envisioned high-tech to foster freedom of choice and diversity, “ad-hocracy” (i.e. short-term, professional, problem solving task forces), liberation of individuals and democracy (Segal, 1994, 179-180); John Naisbait predicted, amongst others, “a global boom free from past limits on growth and without any future limits” and “the triumph of the individual over the collective through high tech computers, cellular phones, and fax machines” (Segal, 1994, 187) and the 1980s IBM advertisements portrayed personal computers as devices bringing order, profits, and happiness (Segal, 1994, 193-194).

Although Noble and Segal situate the origin of the enthusiastic discourse about technology in different historical eras, the similarity of the two traditions described above lies in the way their advocates conceived of technology and technological progress. In what Noble portrays as the religion of technology, technology is the means to restore lost perfection and to achieve salvation, either in the religious context of previous centuries or in the secular context of the twentieth century where religious metaphors are only a remnant of a lost past. In what Segal depicts as technological utopianism, technology is seen as the means to secular salvation and to achieving the perfect society.

Whereas Noble and Segal situate the utopian discourse on the internet within the wider phenomenon of Western and American discourse about technology and hence see it as a straightforward continuation of earlier trends, a group of historians of communication consider the internet to be the latest communication technology and hence argue that the discourse that accompanied its introduction into mainstream culture is better understood within the narrower field of the history of communication. In other words, they distinguish between technologies in general and communication technologies. In particular they stress the ability of communication technologies to symbolically transmit content and mediate communication.

French historian Armand Mattelart claims that communication dates back more than four hundred years, and includes “the multiple circuits of exchange and circulation of goods, people and messages.” Communication also evokes “the diverse doctrines and theories that have contributed to thinking about these phenomena” (Mattelart, 1996, xiv). He argues that since the seventeenth century, first in France and later elsewhere in the West, communication technologies (broadly understood) – such as the Suez Canal or different national railway and telegraph networks – have been ideologized as agents of social revolution by governments and other regime of power. In other words, Mattelart suggests that the utopian discourse on communication technologies, including the internet, is a repetitive phenomenon, initiated by powerful regimes in order to impose order and regulation.

Unlike Mattelart, historians of communication John D. Peters and Carolyn Marvin take “communication” to be a late -nineteenth century concept and provide a phenomenological explanation for the advent of a discourse accompanying the introduction of electronic communication technologies.

Peters argues that since the late nineteenth century, when electronic communication technologies first appeared, “communication” has become central to reflections on democracy, love, and our changing times. New communication technologies such as the telephone and the radio made “communication” possible as a concept in the first place. Thus, according to Peters, the actual event of introducing new media opens up an intellectual, and one might add popular discussion about the possibility of communication. To state the matter differently, communication as a person-to-person activity became conceivable only in the shadow of electronic mediated communication (Peters, 1999).⁴ Thus, according to Peters, the utopian discourse on the internet is a recent manifestation of a hundred-year old discourse on the nature, possibilities and benefits of electronic mediated communication.

2. The Contextualist Position

Carolyn Marvin historically sets the first intense reactions (both utopian and dystopian) to modern communication technologies in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. She describes two ways in which new media have impinged on social life. First, each new medium has shaped the imaginative boundaries of modern communities. As a consequence, the introduction of a new medium challenges, and threatens to re-draw these boundaries. Thus, established habits of social transactions between groups are projected onto a new technological environment that alters, or seems to alter, critical social distances. Second, each new media form restructures and imperils social relationships. Thus, the introduction of new media is “a special historical occasion when patterns anchored in older media that have provided the stable currency of social exchange are reexamined, challenged, and defended” in different public arenas (Marvin, 1988, 4).

In spite of these generalities that explain a recurring pattern of both utopian and dystopian discourses accompanying the introduction of each new type of media over the last hundred years, Marvin is careful to argue that the emergence of every new medium should be understood within a specific historical context. The discourse on the telephone, the electric light and the phonograph during the Victorian era at the turn of the twentieth century, for example, was “built to uphold a scheme of social stratification” that changed much during the twentieth century (Marvin, 1988, 8). It therefore ought to be interpreted in light of specific historical knowledge of the Victorian period.

In the same vein, media scholar Lynn Spigel points out that “while the discourse on new technologies seems to proceed on familiar themes, the historical context change[s] considerably” (Spigel, 1992, 186).⁵

To sum up, the historical continuity position perceives the utopian discourse accompanying the rise of the internet as a straightforward continuation of earlier discursive traditions including the universal phenomenon of myth telling and the traditions of “religion of technology” and “technological utopianism,” and the discourses that accompanied the introduction of new communication technologies into American society from the mid-nineteenth century on. In contrast, the contextualist position argues for a thematic similarity or a repetitive pattern between these earlier discursive traditions and the discourse on the internet but stresses the different and more specific historical contexts that give rise to diverse and, in many ways, different discourses.

I argue that both the historical continuity and the contextualist positions are relevant to fully comprehend the meanings of the discourse on the internet. The first overcomes the popular amnesia and a-historicism as regards the (proclaimed) newness of the internet and reminds us that previous technologies were also envisioned as heralding a promise for a better way of being and living. It invites us to compare our digital present with the past. In addition, it puts forward conceptual frames and sets of themes and topics that are important for our understanding of contemporary discourse.

However, these frames, themes and topics are still too general to account for the specific characteristics of the utopian discourse on the internet. The contextualist position captures the ways in which contemporary context can explain and elucidate certain themes in the discourse that are otherwise not explicable, such as the prevalence of the theme that the internet empowers the individual in her search for success, identity, self-expression and authenticity or the absence of visions on the internet supporting national unity and solidarity.⁶

Part 2

The Discourse on the Internet in Historical Perspective

Earlier scholarship on technological utopianism and the utopian discourses that accompanied the introduction of previous communication technologies into American society provide us with bright, historically-founded and comprehensive descriptions of these traditions. This part briefly examines the main findings of this scholarship.

As shown above, earlier visions dwelled on the actual physical reality of Utopia and its concrete facets of living. Contemporary visions very rarely describe material reality in the Age of the Internet but focus instead on various aspects of social and political life. This is probably due to the current state of affairs in affluent American society in which standards of living are still construed as being higher than in all previous eras. In addition, earlier visions defined Utopia as a well-ordered and well-planned society. Consistent with this well-planned society, personality in Utopia was characterized by “total conformity, rigid self-control and nearly complete suppression of emotion” (Segal, 1985, 138). In contrast, contemporary visions present a relatively more flexible design of society, with capitalism as the economic system and democracy as the political regime. In any case, the freedom of the individual, his spontaneity and expressiveness are taken for granted.

Earlier writers aimed at accurate prediction as regards the future, whereas contemporary ones write with a modicum of skepticism and are well aware of the possible inaccuracy of their predictions.⁷ The difference between the self-confidence in predicting the future of earlier writers and the skepticism of contemporary authors might be explained by the current spirit of cynicism, self-awareness of the futility of such predictions and even a sense of humility toward the future.

Proponents of the internet see only a short time gap – a few years or even less – between their prophecy and the actual fulfillment of their visions.⁸ Unlike former technological utopians of the turn-of-the -century who only expected their utopias to be materialize, if at all, in the distant future, these visionaries anticipate a veritable utopia immediately, or just around the corner.⁹

This notion of the immediacy of utopia can be explained by the actual rate of technological change especially in the field of high-tech that in the last fifty years has immensely accelerated. During the 1990s, the term “internet year”, the equivalent of a dog year, was relatively widespread among techies and captured this sense of acceleration. “Internet year” thus designated the accelerated rate of technological development.¹⁰ The continuous production of new machines, software, and devices may thus account for the sense of the immediacy of technological utopia. In addition, this feeling may be accounted for by a general awareness of immediacy and “the acceleration of just about everything”, a cultural trope that author James Gleick describes aptly in his 1999 book, Faster.

In assessing earlier technological utopian visions, Howard Segal writes that this form of utopian expression had few followers and little influence throughout that period – with the exception of Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (Segal, 1985, 101-102).

I suggest that contemporary visionaries like Howard Rheingold, Esther Dyson and John Perry Barlow were influential and garnered much support, expressing their message in diverse forms. Their gospel, passing through the mass media, was usually well-received. In many ways, they were responsible for creating and molding the spirit of the Internet Age. Nevertheless, they had more modest aspirations compared to earlier prophets. Thus, their visions were not intended to be blueprints for social change, but either expressed collective utopian dreams (as in advertisements) or expert predictions and reflections about the changing conditions of life in the Internet Age. Above all, as Fred Turner argues, they were promoters of “a new, networked mode of techno-social life” (Turner, 2006, 8). Their support of capitalism coupled at times with avowed libertarianism and often dreams of egalitarianism, resonates, more than criticizes, with the ideals of contemporary society. In short, their vision re-produces contemporary ideology.

While technological utopians of earlier eras were obscure figures, they were successful, well-integrated Americans and in this respect had moral authority in their communities and upon their readership, whatever its size. In an age that sought such authority, theirs was unquestionable. In contrast, contemporary visionaries are known to wider communities and are authoritative in their professional field and related fields but do not exert moral authority upon their audience at large. In an era that is suspicious of grand ideologies and power, individuals usually do not seek moral authority in the way that previous generations did.

In what follows, I will examine the utopian discourses that accompanied earlier communication technologies.

2. The Utopian Discourse on Earlier Communication Technologies

Since the mid-nineteenth century, starting with the telegraph, the introduction of new communication technologies into American society has been accompanied by enthusiastic discourse and has given rise to utopian visions of the social order, the economy, politics, culture and education.

Thus, there is, to a certain extent, a thematic similarity and hence a kind of continuity among these different visions. Advocates of the telegraph, the telephone, the radio and television, for example, hailed them as fostering national unity.¹¹ In other words, they were perceived as encouraging integration and creating solidarity and national unity. Moreover, it was hoped they would promote world peace and universal harmony as well.¹² The telephone and the radio were believed to help abolish loneliness by enabling people to be in touch with friends and acquaintances, and by enabling free access to radio programs.¹³ The television was perceived as bringing the family together and reconstructing family life by providing family members with entertainment.¹⁴ The telegraph was expected to extend markets and hence to contribute to the national economy whereas the telephone and the radio were expected to open up new job opportunities.¹⁵ Of the four technologies, visions about the leveling of class distinctions became dominant with the advent of radio: it was seen to democratize the dissemination of knowledge and culture for the first time.¹⁶ Radio and television, which inaugurated the age of broadcasting, were predicted to enhance democracy in that they allowed candidates to be exposed to the public, making them more familiar to their constituents, and enabled voters to judge and question candidates.¹⁷ It was predicted that radio would improve education in that it would change the method of transferring content. It was also seen as democratizing education in that it fostered the spread of knowledge, potentially to all. In addition, radio was seen as a civilizing force by bringing knowledge to everyone, and hence leveling class distinctions.¹⁸

3. Comparing the Earlier Discourses on Communication Technologies to the Discourse on the Internet

Comparing these early visions to the one formulated with the advent of the internet shows that all share the dream of global understanding, world peace and harmony, although with the introduction of the internet these dreams were articulated more strongly; that is, in diverse sources and more often. The idea underlying these dreams is that more communication will render international conflicts and cultural differences meaningless. Nevertheless, although the early media were predicted to contribute to national unity, solidarity and integration, no such expectations were raised with the introduction of the internet. Instead, many of the internet visions focused on the individual, personal freedom, success, identity, self-expression and search for authenticity. Like the telephone, the internet’s promise was to end individual isolation and foster inter-societal understanding. Similar to the idea underlying the dream of global harmony and world peace, the idea underlying the dream of mediated proximity is that the availability of more communication contributes to the enhancement of social relations. Like the television, the internet was perceived as improving and enlivening family life, but whereas the television was predicted to do so by providing entertainment for all family members at home, the internet was expected to do so through its ability to support an intensive exchange of messages between far-away family members. Like the radio, the internet was predicted to foster a more egalitarian and just society on the basis of apparently equal opportunity for all users to obtain information. However, unlike the radio, the internet was expected to promote an egalitarian society on the basis of its alleged ability to sustain disembodied communication. More than all the other media the internet was envisioned to encourage the development of online communities as spaces of solidarity, cooperation and accountability and later, as forums of information and shared interests. The telegraph was expected to improve the economy by extending the national market and the telephone and the radio – by creating a demand for new jobs. In a similar manner the internet was perceived as a way to open up opportunities for new goods and services, but unlike the older media it was envisioned as creating unparalleled opportunities for the right individual entrepreneur to extend markets globally and to shape a new economic order – friction-free capitalism – an improvement on the existing one.

When it comes to politics and democracy, like the radio and television before it, the internet was predicted to strengthen the democratic state by providing individuals with information to use in making their political decisions. In addition, the three media were expected to improve democracy by exposing the candidates to the voters and by improving the relations between candidates and constituents – by enabling more communication. They were also seen as providing an opportunity to monitor candidates. However, only the internet was expected to support televoting and hence to make the ideal of direct democracy a reality.

The radio, television and the internet were seen as contributing to improvements in education in that they transmit knowledge in new ways, reach everyone and allow for unlimited access to knowledge. In this respect, they are seen as democratizing instruments. Both new media are seen as civilizing forces in that they make culture available to everyone.

The most striking differences between the early visions and the contemporary one are that the earlier media were thought to support the family and the local traditional community and were seen as potential new pillars of national unity and economic prosperity. The internet on the other hand was envisioned as empowering the individual in relations with both local and global egalitarian virtual communities, by sharing support, interests and information. In short, the internet came to be associated “with the fulfillment of a small-scale of individual needs and desires” (Segal, 2005, 166).¹⁹ Hence virtuality has become a strong trope, suggesting the autonomous existence of cyberspace and the possibility of benign disembodied communication. The strong libertarian view voiced in the discourse called for a laissez-faire economy. In addition, in the new global market, economic success was seen as the achievement of the individual entrepreneur.

To conclude, the repeating element in both the technological utopian visions and the various utopian discourses on earlier communication technologies is their technological determinist world view, where technology is seen as functioning as an independent agent of history and conveys a vivid sense of the efficacy of technology in bringing about improvement and betterment. Another repeating and related element is the strong belief that all these visions express progress in the form of technological achievements. In other words, all these visions equate progress with advances in technology. The repeating element in the utopian discourse on the internet and the utopian discourse on earlier communication technologies is the dream of global understanding, world peace and harmony.

The many differences between these visions include, among others, the dream of a well-ordered society brought about by technology that was expressed in earlier technological utopian visions. This contrasts with the more flexible design of society in the Internet Age or the vision of earlier media supporting the family, the local traditional community and fostering national unity as compared to the vision of the internet as empowering the individual in the fulfillment of his needs and desires.

These similarities, along with the many differences, suggest a “family resemblance”: the utopian discourse on the internet both continues earlier utopian discourses on technology in general and communication technologies in particular, but at the same time differs from them.

The many similarities can be explained by the persistence of the traditions of a religion of technology and technological utopianism. Both are enthusiastic about new technologies and take them to be a means for religious salvation and the ultimate solution to social and economic problems, respectively. In addition, and more specifically, following the phenomenological explanation provided by Peters and Marvin above, these similarities can be explained by the more or less similar characteristics of communication technologies. As I argued earlier, all electronic communication technologies in their many variants opened up an intellectual and popular discussion about the (benign) possibilities of communication. In addition, they shaped the imaginative boundaries of modern communities and restructured and imperiled social relationships. As a consequence, their introduction into society in different eras gave rise to more or less similar discourses.

The following part focuses on the ways the utopian discourse on the internet differs from earlier discourses. I will explain these differences by concentrating on the unique characteristics of the internet and the changing historical context.