The Age of Paine Revisited

Long ago -- so it feels -- in a galaxy far away, I wrote a story for Wired Magazine called "The Age of Paine" in which I prophesied a utopian outpouring of digital pamphleteering, individualism and democracy, all sparked by the liberating powers of the Net. Like other writers and editors at Wired then, I imagined a new kind of digital citizen, empowered by all the information the Net would bring him by the Net's distributed architecture. The digital citizen would be smart, civil and rational, outgrowing labels like "liberal" or "conservative", engaged in civics, technology, business and government; transcending dogma and cant. Maybe he or she will pop up, but probably not in my life.

I had no doubt that I was seeking the start of a transformative global revolution. The fervor and excitement I felt then are still fresh in my mind, though few of those fantasies have yet materialized and some, as the years pass, are seeming increasingly unlikely in my lifetime. And I'm still not sure I was wrong.

Many of the ideas in that essay were indirectly inspired by the hell-raiser of the American Revolution, a writer I've admired all my life. Thomas Paine, a media pioneer, one of the first people in the world to advance the notion of free information in an open society, of individual liberty flourishing amid the demise of institutions and monarchies. In my piece, I imagined Paine online, flaming and blasting away.

In the overheated Wired environment of the time -- some of the people running the magazine were true political radicals, a rare breed in popular media -- the prevailing idea was that the Net would sweep away hoary institutions like Congress, Big Media and Wall Street, changing more or less everything. Top-down, exclusive, closed and proprietary entities would tremble and collapse at the outpouring of ideas, intellectual property, education, democracy and ideas that the Net would provide. One magazine columnist even gushed that illiteracy among the young would vanish because kids all over the world would be so desperate to get online.

I was Wired's easternmost correspondent, based not in California but New York; as such, I got a first-hand look at just how the Net was traumatizing Eastern media. The spectre of all these weird kids hacking together this exciting new kind of many-to-many information culture really shook people up. The bland, filtered, from the top-down media, Wall Street, Congress -- they were all scared to death. They hated the Net then; they still do. (Though just this week, I noticed the stodgy New York Times op-ed page appending e-mail addresses to its regular columns; a landmark of sorts.) Yet as much as the Net has evolved, it's shocking to see how little traditional politics or the popular press has. Real interactivity, perhaps the most political idea ever in media, barely exists off-line.

In my essay, published in the April, l995 issue of the magazine, I wrote that the pamphleteering Paine, who had no children, did have a descendant

"where his values prosper and are validated millions of times a day: the Internet. There, his ideas about communications, media ethics, the universal connections between people, the free flow of honest opinion are all relevant again, visible every time one modem shakes hands with another. The Net offers what Paine and his revolutionary colleagues hoped for in their own new media - a vast, diverse, passionate, global means of transmitting ideas and opening minds. That was part of the political transformation envisioned when he wrote: 'We have it in our power to begin the world over again.' Through media, he believed, 'we see with other eyes; we hear with other ears; and think with other thoughts, than those we formerly used.'"

It isn't clear whether we -- you -- began the world over again. We do -- thanks to the Net -- see with other eyes and hear with other ears, and think new thoughts. Those are still prescient and timely words.

Paine's ideas about a free press, an outpouring of individual opinion and a ferocious sense of social justice seem especially alien to the corporatized, homogenized, blow-dried practioners of "objectivity" who have inherited the American press. The Net suggested a rebirth of Paine's fading values.

Did it deliver? For sure, the pamphleteering model was true. The explosion in weblogs, pages, mailing lists, groups, topics, threads, message boards and p2p systems has introduced nothing less than a new age of individual expression. The personal archives now on the Net are unprecedented in human history, from family bios to discussions of gardening, dogs, politics and sex. Sites like Napster, Deja and EBay -- even Amazon -- have revolutionized business and consumerism. Sexuality has been liberating online, and TV and other forms of entertainment are sure to become subordinate to the Web. Cultural movements like open source have spread far beyond software in terms of their impact on society. The Net has made anyone with a computer a world-wide communicator or entrepreneur, at least potentially. Individuals are freer than ever to talk about sex, engage in heresy, sound off, connect with others, and distribute their thoughts. People with unimaginably diverse interests can now find one another instantly. It's easier to be a gay teenager, a member of a militia, an ex-Marine, a rabbit lover, a scientific researcher. Thanks to computers, there are now a million Paines out there.

But some things have been lost, as well -- influence and commonality. This new individualistic medium is so personal it's become self-absorbed, almost narcissistic. Individuals are speaking out, but it isn't clear who, if anyone, is listening. And it isn't always democratic either. There are few common grounds, town squares or open spaces online. People frequently use blocking and filtering software and programs to stick with the like-minded, not explore the different or experience other points of view. Ideas fly all over the Web, but they often end up on the screens of people who already agree, otherwise they would have long ago unsubscribed. Teenagers and political fanatics have turned the Net's public forums -- on Slashdot, CNN, ABCNews and MSNBC -- into hostile electronic cesspools. To have actual conversations online, you're forced to join clubs where membership and speech boundaries are regulated, even to the point of specialized blocking programs that permit people to gauge levels of hostility or agreement. The digital citizen isn't always very free and open to new ideas. Some of those sites are great, but this doesn't exactly constitute an open and democratic environment, one of the great early dreams of the Net. Joining a rational discussion of a common issue has become virtually impossible on any Net forum that's not restricted by membership or other restrictive tools.

In practical ways, the Net has proved more revolutionary than most of us thought. In l995, few people imagined how ubiquitous e-mail would become, how much of a family communications tool, how natural a medium for teenagers and college students and for grandma and grandpa, how fundamental to research and text, how threatening to copyright and intellectual property traditions. I hardly expected within a few years that a U.S. President would be passing along URLs in a speech before Congress. The explosion in gaming and online entertainment was similarly unforeseen -- most people took the new medium too seriously for that. Almost nobody predicted how specialized online communications would become, how polished online retailing would get, or imagine the marketplace potential of an entity like eBay. We did lots of heavy breathing about the rise of the virtual community -- expectations that have not been met. The hostility bred by the Internet wildly exceeded anyone's expectations, and is nothing less than a tragedy for the idea of the digital citizen.

The Net is, if anything, bigger than people thought it would be now, a part of more people's work and personal lives. Also their creativity -- art and writing flourish online, even when they can't make it off. But its primary impact has been practical, not ideological. Instant messaging has probably had greater import for younger Americans than digital pamphleteering has.

The hacker universe has sobered up as well. Who would have thought, a decade back, that one company, Microsoft, would in fact achieve everyone's paranoid fantasy and conquer the global desktop? Or that that one of the primary champions of Linux would be IBM? In the post September 11 era, hackers are in for a rough time, and the environment of the Net may change again. In the name of national security, authorities will be more vigilant and visible online, with the authority to throw up roadblocks all over the Net. The consequences of cyber-terrorism would now be staggering, and the spectre of the Twin Towers will give government the upper hand politically in its long brawl with the free spirits online.

Nor did anyone quite expect the speed of the transition from capitalism to corporatism, an era in which global corporations acquire media, commerce and popular culture; control copyright and intellectual property; and become the primary funders and corrupters of the political system.

Despite the flowering of individual voices on the Net, we live in an arguably less democratic culture than we did a decade ago, even before Attorney General Ashcroft's sweeping actions.

So does this add up to grim news? I don't know yet, and may not know in my life. The rise of individualism online seems irreversible. If individuals can't reach mass audiences, they can't easily be shut down, either. It seems inconceivable that our society will ever return to a few-to-many model of information, when masses of people waited for a handful of information gatekeepers to parcel out information. But as for the contemporary armies of Paine's some hoped would emerge from the digital din, make themselves heard, even achieve influence -- I'm still waiting for them.

Comments

Microsoft

[sulli]

Who would have thought, a decade back, that one company, Microsoft, would in fact achieve everyone's paranoid fantasy and conquer the global desktop?

IIRC MS-DOS and Windows 3.x were the leading OS in 1991. What's changed?

Large Impact, not Wholesale Change

[stealie72]

If anything, the net has given us the ability to find just about any information we want. While the main news/political sites are still status quo, people who want to go out there and raise hell are able to find dissadent information a whole lot easier than before the rise of the net. At least this is true in the US.

I work for an advocacy oriented nonprofit, and I can tell you that the net has had a huge impact on the way we interact with government, and the way we interact with grassroots supporters (getting them to write their Representatives, etc). Give the US government a few years to catch up.

I do not think, however, that the net is going to change the way governments work wholesale. They'll still be corrupt and powerful, and they'll still be trying to screw you and me.

Why would the net make people more active?

[jonnythan]

Whatever you like to think, people in general are still lazy, apathetic, and just plain don't care.

No amount of information overload or internet connectivity will change basic human nature. Simply giving everyone net access (or whatever) won't turn them into caring, conscious, active, wonderful citizens.

Re:Why would the net make people more active?

[Jason Earl]

Even more importantly, most of the people that are now getting onto the Internet don't share the same values as Katz. Instead of being excited about the "sexual revolution" they are trying to find ways to keep their children from being immersed in pornography. And they certainly aren't interested in what gay teenagers are doing online (other than trying to make sure that they aren't trying to solicit sex from their sons).

Many of the caring, conscious, active, citizens that are using the Internet for information disagree with Katz and most everyting he stands for. For example, they see the fact that the U.S. government is a Republic (and not a pure democracy) as an important safeguard to their liberties. They believe that the government should take an active role in supporting morality. They support the First Ammendment, and would give their lives to defend it, but they are saddened that all too often the First Ammendment is used as a cover for pornographers instead of in support of actual political thought.

Katz has made the mistake of thinking that his definition of the perfect society is universal, but it isn't, not by a long shot.

Re:Why would the net make people more active?

[Ldir]

Katz has made the mistake of thinking that his definition of the perfect society is universal, but it isn't, not by a long shot.

True enough; be sure to recognize that your definition is not universal either, not by a long shot. You are apparently offended by "pornography" - whatever that means to you. I've found that nude bodies do not offend me nearly as much as self-righteous people who feel they have the right, even the obligation, to impose their own peculiar moral idiosyncracies on others.

If a web site offends me, I don't visit it. If a TV program offends me, I turn it off. If my children are viewing things that I find objectionable, I execute my parental responsibility by stopping them. If the local religious zealot is preaching his lessons of intolerance and bigotry, I move my children along so their impressionable minds are not tainted by the arrogant presumption that any man can claim that his beliefs alone are the one and only true way to connect man with God.

As I read it, Katz does not advocate denying you your right to associate with like-minded people. As I read it, Katz recognizes the need to filter the juveniles and the extremists that drown out intelligent discussion through the sheer volume of their noise. It seems to me that Katz is merely saying that much of the net's potential to expand our minds is lost because there are so few places where people with differing views can (or at least do) discuss them in an intelligent and reasoned way. He isn't requiring you to participate. He's simply bemoaning the lack of opportunities to do so.

"Judge not, lest ye be judged." It's not just simple human decency, it's the (Christian) law.

I'll make the obvious observations...

[MillMan]

Technology doesn't change the world, people change the world. Or insert any similar one-liner of your choice.

Things have changed for the better in some ways. Media consolidation has been very rapid the past 6 years or so. Yet anyone with interenet access has access to independant media outlets that ask questions and dig deeper than the mainstream media, who are spoon fed by the pentagon and are quite conciously ok with that.

The problem is that people have to know about these sites and want to go to them. If the entire population is brainwashed to follow one point of view, it won't matter if the plain truth is right in front of them. That is a problem technology can't solve.

Re:Katz Notes™ (Cliff Notes for a Katz artic

[s20451]

Yes, but it's more like the crank physicist argument. People laughed at and persecuted Einstein; people are laughing at and persecuting me; therefore, my ideas are equally significant to Einstein's. Just replace Paine with Einstein and you have the essence of the article.

The FOREST Got BIG!

[3seas]

From the intro to the original Article in Wired.

"Thomas Paine was one of the first journalists to use media as a weapon against the entrenched power structure. He should be resurrected as the moral father of the Internet. Jon Katz explains why. "

Let me suggest that size and force of the "media" has simply become ubiquitous. Can't see the forest that has grown, for the single tree you are looking at one foot in front of you, Jon.

Consider this forest enabling us all to integrate information in ways that would be impossible to even dream of before, not to mention now having the ability to share that new information with others so that they can help make productive use of new integrations.

As an Example integrating the world information to the computer industry to the individual....

Bah!! Communism != Fascism

[Anonymous Coward]

(rant warning)

Oh, for the love of...

The cold war propaganda against communism has perpetated the American psyche so badly, that no one seems to know exactly what it is, beyond, ooo, that communism stuff, that's evil...

I'd really love it if people would stop bashing an economic system they apparently know nothing about.

Yea, you heard me. Economic system. Communism has nothing to do with the way a government deals with it's citizen's rights. Commisism is merely an economic arrangement by which everything becomes public property. The government merely manages all aspects of an economy, essentially making the entire populace members of the public service. (Which, kinda has it's own problems, heh, heh...)

I''l give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you're a libertarian, so fine, yea, in your view communism is a bad thing. But it's only the oposite of free market economics. Democracy and communism can coexist quite nicely, it's just that most examples of communist governments slipped into a fascist state of mind.

Democracy and fascism sit on opposite ends of a spectrum, just like communism and free market. Think of it this way: Whenever something is managed by the government, that's socialism. Roads and infrastructure maintenance, medicaid, social security, hell, the military! That is the essence of socialism, not some cold war ideal of lack of basic human rights. Whenever a government pays for something, that's socailism. There's a good synonym for socialism that get used a whole lot more, since it's such a demonized word. Nationalization. Yea, public service.

Beisdes, there are plenty of examples of socialism and democracy working just fine together. Look at the Scandinavian countries, and other western European nations. Hey, cast a glance just north. Yea, your forgotten neighbours, and my home, Canada. We've got a social safety net, universal heatlh care and well susbsidized school systems. We have yet to fall into a fascist state. (And oddly enough, the only ones who have proposed repealing human rights for certain individuals are the right-wing anti-socialism political parties) Oh yea, a really good point on this freedom thing, as the anniversary of it's adoption has just passed. The man credited with drafting the universal declaration of human rights. Do you know from where he hails? Not the USA. No, actually he hails from up here. Yea, Canada, land of evil socialism, the country that has probably done the most for the cause of human rights in the past fifty years.

So much for restricted freedoms...

(/rant warning)

(AC'd 'cause I'm at work, and can't remember my password...)

Re:For Those Who Don't Speak Katz

[Jason Earl]

What Katz doesn't understand is that for some people don't want to be a part of these "liberated" communities that he is so happy about. What he calls expression, I call pornography. And where he sees discussion, all too often all I see is pointless drivel aimed at the absolute lowest common denominator.

Now, I believe firmly that everyone has the right to think as they choose, but that does not mean that I want to participate in their idiocy with them. Katz sees filtering software as discriminatory, but I see filtering software as necessary for the survival of true open minded discussion. As we have seen on this very forum, without a way to filter out the background noise it is utterly impossible to have a rational conversation.

All mankind is created equal, but all opinions are not equal. Some people, no matter how passionately they hold their beliefs, are wrong.

Re:The more things change...

[killthiskid]

I'm not sure I agree.

I know the net has changed me... I often tell people that EVERYTHING is on the 'net, some where, it's finding it that takes real effort. That being said, everyday I learn something new off the net.

Example: hydroponics. Where I live, the closest hydro shop is 6 hours away. Sure, I could have done mail-order, but I would have had to find a catalog. Now, a search on google and I have 50 different places I can buy hydro supplies and another 500 pages with FAQs, how-to, etc. In a half an hour, I have a very decent understanding of why hydro involves, techniques, costs, etc...

Slashdot is a good example, too... like with the new WORM_GONE virus. Slashdot ran a story, and in that story I found 10+ links about the virus and other interesting things about Outlook, like obscure information about how to set up it's handling of attachments. In 20 minutes of reading, I found more info than I would have with hours of digging (ever try to find good on info in the MS knowledge base? Drives me insane sometimes).

I once read a that the really interesting things happen at boundary areas, i.e. earth is in boundary between a sun and the coldness of deep space. The same can be said about information... when two areas of knowledge run against each other, that's where the interesting things are. The net is this very thing... an nearly infinite set of info and ideas rubbing up against another. Granted, the noise level is high, and it takes work to do put it all together, but I feel that if a person is open to ideas and can filter out bulls**t, there is a lot to be had from the chaos of the net.

Has it empowered me? Yes, in some ways. Do I feel I can make a major difference because of the net? Nope, not yet anyway.

Re:The more things change...

[Atzanteol]

I'm not saying that you *can't* do more, just that things like the 'net will enable you do do more of what you already would. I don't think may people have truly changed their ways due to technology.

Consider the printing press. Changed the world? Yes, but the nature of people didn't change. Perhaps I'm being cynical, but I just think that humanity is stuck in it's ways, and technology becomes a tool to do more of what we do, rather than a motivator to do things 'better.'

T.V. was to be an educational tool. In ways it is, but I also get better access to propoganda, ads, and mindless drival.

Until the people who control technology change, I doubt very much any single technological advance will greatly modify humanity.