Brave New Blog
Capitalism and the internet have largely defeated Big Brother’s forces of information control. As our eyes bulge at the all you can eat data buffet, though, can society muster the discipline to eat the veggies that make government of, by, and for the people possible, or will we citizens fatten ourselves on endless desserts that inhibit our capacity for active democracy? Ideas matter, and we must make sure that they continue to matter. Technology must serve ideas, not sever them from the public discourse.
Although a Chinese teenager trying to Google “Tiananmen Square 1989” might well disagree, on the whole, more information is available now in more places than ever before. Shakespeare and SportsCenter, Plato and pornography, all are available in the pocket of a middle-class Westerner or at the African net café. In the noteworthy year of 1984, Neil Postman surveyed the pre-web world and bemoaned the rise of an image-based media that was dulling the population’s literary-rooted decision making skills. Amusing Ourselves to Death saw the coming defeat of centralized propaganda but feared the continued rise of a Brave New World:
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.
Since that time, the internet has opened up unparalleled access for voters who want to drill down beyond TV sound bites, and the de-centralization of the media makes information control much more difficult. Unfortunately, these benefits are being washed away in a flood of frivolous noise that threatens to distract any thought process well before it reaches a critical level. Tightly constructed accessible arguments that once flowed to millions from a William F. Buckley or a C.S. Lewis still exist, but such nutrient rich meals must compete with mounds of cheap cerebral carbs on YouTube and TMZ. Apple’s famous 1984 Super Bowl ad spoke of technology defeating an Orwellian order. 2009’s em>Alec in Hululand< shows that we are instead happily skipping down Aldous Huxley’s dystopian path; disturbingly content to laugh at our inability to do anything else.
Wisely, the RNC recently convened an open technology summit. Obama’s techies used social networking and texting to effectively mobilize a plugged-in generation around vague calls for hope and change. The challenge for the GOP will be to master technology in the service of relevant conservative principles while resisting the downward gravitational pull that the medium itself exerts on the message.
Recently, via what appears to be a fair election (following a very unfair campaign), the people of Venezuela paved the way for an ongoing Hugo Chavez Show. Although it might prove to be a defining moment for an entire continent, few North Americans noticed because an octuplet mom demands our attention first. Blessedly, our political traditions are strong enough, for the time being, to insure that Barack Obama is in the White House no more than eight years. And this President, despite his sizable cult of personality, is certainly no Hugo the Great. Yet, if we spend this time in the political wilderness merely looking to Twitter the next great Republican one word slogan, our ideas, rather than turning the tide of government expansion and societal decline, will simply be swept away by the waves of distraction.