The Cyber-Knave Conspiracy

How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card or equivocation will undo us.
Hamlet

Nearly any dramatic rendition of the Internet would open with a host of Visionary Computer Scientists and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency), the American military research agency that encouraged their cybernetic visions -- and paid their freight. Probably missing from the narrative -- and already excised from the fount of popular knowledge -- would be the millions of anonymous US Taxpayers who bankrolled the decades long development of the Internet, and without knowledge or acknowledgment, obliviously planted the seeds of the now titanic American computer industry. These unwitting "Venture Capitalists" of yesteryear are now peripheral; their new role is that of eager and empty-headed consumers. Players from grander enterprises -- those in the ascendant and much-hallowed private sector -- will now take it from here, thank you.

The Internet, as everybody knows, is that ingenious tissue of interconnected computers that, according to the media, will change everything. Its original purpose was to keep American military data flowing even if the cold war turned hot. But by the mid 1990's the Internet had changed drastically; it was becoming an extremely popular medium for informal communication between people and the original military purpose all but faded from sight. During this time, a new cast of characters emerged, but not necessarily characters with better roles. Unfortunately, as we shall see, these new players are not concerned with the legitimate needs of a democratic society; far from it. In fact, the future chapters of the Internet's story will likely be dominated by knaves.

Internet users, from the very beginning, realized that the Internet was much more than just a way for our data to lick their data. Nearly overnight, e-mail became the dominant use, and conversational "newsgroups" on hundreds of topics flourished. But people realized also that the Internet is not really just another communications medium. It's more like a primordial stew in which new media are spawned, grow, and, if conditions are suitable, thrive. Familiar forms like letters, television, magazines, radio, and the telephone can be mimicked, but hybrids and unexpected new mutations will also come into being, finding niches in the electronic ecology of the future net.

The Internet, as we all know, is proliferating at unbelievable rates and establishing footholds in far-flung regions (the number of Chinese host computers on the Internet increased tenfold last year; it is now possible to send e-mail to Nepal: chapters of my community networking book are now available on a Russian web site). But this new media revolution is far from over. The stages in the lifetime of networked digital communication are still unfolding and what we're currently seeing is very likely some type of hyperkinetic electronic larva.

Democratic Technology?

With hardware prices plummeting, investment escalating, and use worldwide tripling every year, the Internet (and other new communications technology) offers tantalizing possibilities to the activist and the social meliorist who crave inexpensive, two-way communication (unlike newspapers, television, or radio) with which to collaborate with allies and disseminate their message. Thousands of grassroots and civic organizers around the world have accepted the challenge that the new technology offers and have launched countless civic experiments from free community networks and media centers to voice-mail for the homeless and neighborhood Internet cafes. Virtually ignored by the press, these people are hoping to show that the new communication technology can be inexpensive, accessible to all, equitable, participatory, and community-oriented.

Unfortunately, these altruistic impulses are being suffocated as the Internet more closely approximates what Cleveland Free-net founder, Tom Grundner, calls "TV on steroids." To say that the Internet is rapidly becoming commercialized is to engage in vast understatement. A few scant years ago 2% of all web sites were commercial, now over 90% pitch products. A Microsoft Vice President reminds us that "at least seven of the top 10 [web] sites" currently "control what sites get viewed." Needless to say, the vast majority of the web sites and new applications currently being developed have nothing to do with democracy, communities, or other genuine human needs. Their developers have apparently drawn their inspiration from video games, television schlock and Las Vegas consumerist bedlam.

But how can that be? Who could possibly be opposed to a communications infrastructure that is strongly democratic and enables people around the world to discuss the ordinary -- and the extraordinary -- with one another, to organize neighborhood musical revues, parades, demonstrations, and other events, and to confront vexing community problems like unemployment or toxic chemicals in local streams?

The Cast

The answer, it turns out, is an informal cabal involving several types of actors, knaves, we'll call them, whose world-views may be profoundly incompatible with each other but who, in fact, have entered into a de facto alliance to ensure that the new electronic medium becomes manipulative and undemocratic (thus becoming dismayingly similar to our other mass media). These knaves, specifically the Techno-Utopian, the Big Money Commodifier, the Know-It-All Bureaucrat (and his evil twin, the Know-Nothing Bureaucrat), the Free Marketeer, the Fatalist (or Realist as they view themselves), and the Politically Correct Luddite, supply much of the villainy in this real-life cyberdrama.

Each knave performs on stages in which his or her views resonate and tends to avoid venues with more critical audiences. (That's one reason why their collaboration is so useful, important, and pernicious: it enables them to do battle simultaneously and spontaneously on several fronts.) Sometimes their influence can be traced to the senior positions they occupy in the government or large corporations where they are rewarded handsomely for their loyalty and dedication. Sometimes a knave's ready quip and palatable political philosophy can earn him ready access to the media and to the megaphones of popular ideology. And sometimes the knaves are amateurs, who tirelessly work the neighborhoods and back-roads from their back fence, barstool, or keyboard as unpaid foot-soldiers.

Although these admittedly exaggerated stereotypes may not match any single person, their attitudes are plainly discernible in today's swirling and volatile mix of public consciousness (including net-talk and of course, the grandiloquent manifestos that reverberate endlessly through cyberspace's electronic corridors). Although adherents of one philosophy and approach to technology may disagree violently with some of the others, they often band together in tacit opposition to the development of democratic technology.

Meet the Knaves

Ambrose Bierce, creator of the fiendish "Devil's Dictionary," defined the future as "that period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true, and our happiness is assured." The Techno-Utopian (TU) -- often in league with the Big Money Commodifier and the Free Marketeer -- subscribes wholeheartedly to these sentiments, unabashedly basing his optimism on technology, technology that promises to be bigger, faster, better. Like a toddler forsaking toys in his own cupboard for the ones that he sees on television, the Techno-Utopian is uninterested in the present, which is too dreary and prosaic. Far from being neutral or harmless delusions, the fantasies spun by this knave provide an alluring sleight-of-hand, a bait-and-switch for the guileless. Never mind crumbling schools, homelessness, and other inequities of the here and now. Kindly cast your gaze on the glittering world of the future, where pain, misery and hunger have been vanquished.

TU knaves, lauded as "futurists" or, even, "visionaries" by the press, have little trouble garnering media attention. Their unrestrained hyperbole translates effortlessly into splashy headlines, striking a chord with young cybernauts weaned on television and video games. Furthermore, the TU crystal ball is a clear, precise, and inexhaustible store of insights, unclouded by doubt or ambiguity. (Here Wired magazine does not fail us. A recent issue sported an oppressively vacuous "happy face" earth to illustrate the 20-year "long boom" of prosperity that computer technology is ushering in.) TUs have an answer to anything; their sound bites slick and reassuring. When the nation's inadequate health care system is discussed, the TU will bring up "telemedicine"; if inequitable access to communication technology is raised, the TU will tantalize us with the promise of "infinite bandwidth" (sounding distressingly similar to the oft quoted slogan of yesteryear, which, promised abundant nuclear energy that would be "too cheap to meter").

There are so many TUs these days, it's hard to keep track of them all. One of the loftiest of the TU approaches consolidates the sum of human history into some small number of "waves." Unencumbered with the intricacies of the here and now, this type of "vision" is truly "visionary." There is certainly no role for people or communities as advocates or agents for change within the TU ontology. Like the television spectators we are, our proscribed role clearly is of passive viewing. This is a new world created for the entrepreneurs, eager trend-surfers who ride the wave nanoseconds before the rest of the pack, deftly slipping onto the next one while the previous one crashes apart. Right now, the wave is unmistakably electronic: go, cyber, young entrepreneur!

Another flavor of technological utopianism relies less on technology but more on naive assumptions about the nature of existing social, economic and political structures, and the ingrained idea of progress in general. Advocates of "electronic democracy," generally of a more benign or naive composition than some knaves I have known, sometimes fall victim to this particular strain of utopianism (as did advocates of radio, and both broadcast and cable television earlier this century). The term "electronic democracy" suggests that telecommunication technology can, will, or does, support the activities that we call democratic. Computer networks can open doors to participation (knave opposition notwithstanding) but they open doors to a multitude of other problems at the same time. Democracy is vulnerable to many threats and "electronic democracy" may turn out to be even more "abuser-friendly" than traditional democracy. Democracy relies on democratic processes yet those are virtually non-existent in cyberspace. Perhaps it's time to concoct a new "Robert's Rules of Order -- Revised for Electronic Participation" as an antidote to the pitched and empty din that has come to characterize many "discussions" in cyberspace.

While the TU is absorbed in technological yearning the alliance can derive strength and vigor from other founts. The Big Money Commodifier (BMC) and the Free Marketeer (FM) could probably be amalgamated into a single knave but there are some interesting and critical distinctions between them. The BMC is often a member of a large corporate enterprise, either as a cog or a coordinator. To the BMC, people are customers and information is generic "content" which, like any other commodity, is fabricated or purchased, then sold for a profit. Although the BMC isn't necessarily trying to destroy communities or discourage democratic discourse, the side-effects of the Big Money imperatives (including legislative ones forged by their lobbyists and their allies in Congress) are likely to produce those results. Privatization and monopolization of information and communication channels will result in reduced public participation, less useful information, and diminished overall quality. Commercials will masquerade as news and education will be transformed into interactive video games. Violent fare will crowd out ordinary conversation, including any political talk upon which democratic societies depend.

Ideology -- not money, -- it is said, motivates the Free Marketeer (FM). Often the FM believes himself to be "rugged individualist," denying for one reason or another, the interdependence of society upon which all humankind depends.. Ironically, many of these "rugged individualists" are heads of large corporations and are, hence, nearly indistinguishable from the BMC . We have the media to thank at least partially for manufacturing heroes of this persuasion. Wired magazine provides some of the most blatant and grotesque illustrations of this. On one of their covers, we see TCI chairman John Malone's face grafted onto the "Road Warrior" torso. On another, Bell Atlantic CEO Ray Smith reconstituted as Conan the Barbarian adorns the cover. The FM is always ready to unfurl the banner of freedom to support his view that government should not interfere (in the slightest bit) with the lives of individuals. While this slogan may resonate with progressives or liberals, it is, ironically, an implicit endorsement of business interests over public interests. Ignoring the fact that the government virtually created the computer industry, the FM is, in fact, more concerned with the "lives" of corporations than with those of people. Left to the mercy of corporate interests, unchecked by any government intervention, people with fewer resources would indeed be "free" -- free to go without food and health care -- free to sleep under bridges. Employers would also be "free" -- free to return to an era of no government regulations, where they again could demand 80-hour weeks, child labor, and unchecked toxic emissions.

As a matter of fact, without explicitly acknowledging it, FMs are almost entirely concerned with rights and freedoms of the middle and upper classes. FMs are often "free-thinkers" who might reject the notion of God, for example, as superstition. We soon discover, however, that the "Free Market" has superseded God as an object of adoration, a source of infallibility, and a fount from whom all blessings flow; many FMs turn out to be fundamentalists, with all the inflexible dogmatism that the word connotes.

The Progress and Freedom Foundation (PFF) provides perhaps the best example of the FM philosophy. Their excursions into the cyber-scene were marked with much of the same rhetorical excess and "look and feel" that net advocates might find in the pages of Wired magazine. In an advertisement for their cyber-spaced-out manifesto, "Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age," they assert that "cyberspace is a frontier, not a government project," This sound bite is easily decoded: "Frontier" = exciting and manly -- see any Hollywood western for more evidence; "Government project" = boring, dismal and wasteful -- think of a desultory road crew. Instead, according to their most hallowed incantations, cyberspace should be retooled into a new money machine for corporations. Now that the US. government (or, more accurately, its citizens) have paid for the Internet and other fundamental advances in computing, PFF believes that it should be turned over to the big companies who have the resources and instincts to exploit it more thoroughly. These are some of the same big companies, not surprisingly, who have already donated nearly two million dollars to PFF: AT&T, TCI, Cox Enterprises, Wired, and Forbes Magazine, to name a few.

Working down the playbill, we note the Politically Correct Luddite (PCL) and the Fatalist/Realist (FR). These two are unlikely co-conspirators with the other knaves: They're less vocal and flamboyant than the previous knaves and their political leanings may be -- gasp -- leftward. The PCL may, for example, have great empathy for the poor and the disadvantaged; he is likely to be equally incensed over governmental or corporate irresponsibility. Inaction, however, is his course of action. This apparently stems from his disdain of anything political (which, he reminds us, is "dirty") or anything technological (which is less "natural" than trees, art, or spiritual matters. Unfortunately keeping one's hands clean in this way forfeits the battle to the knaves -- including literally thousands of well-paid beltway lobbyists -- who don't have the same standards of ethical purity. Like it or not, many aspects of this struggle will be political, and many aspects will involve technology. To contribute meaningfully to the shaping of future communications systems, some understanding of both will be necessary

We now cast our critical eye upon the Fatalist/Realist (FR) mentioned above. The FR is likely to acknowledge -- if not celebrate -- any and all societal deficiencies. The FR will readily admit that communities are coming apart at the seams, that corporations run roughshod over public discourse, that environmental degradation is alarming, and that distribution of goods and services is obscenely inequitable. What the FR will not acknowledge, however, is that anything can be done to alleviate these problems. Admitting the possibility of positive change would undermine their public stance and dreary yet omniscient point-of-view. Worse yet, it would make their participation imperative. Without hopelessness, they would be compelled to act on their beliefs. With hopelessness, their inaction is, regrettably, the only possible response to the iron logic of a cruel and unjust world.

Finally, we turn to the Internet's midwife, the US government, whose casting department supplies two characters (or one with two faces) to the knavish drama. The first character is the "Know It All Bureaucrat" whose knowledge coincides exactly with the entire galaxy of what is worth knowing. This limitless understanding may have its roots in simple megalomania or may have come about through years of experience processing payroll checks. The flip side of the omniscient government worker is his twisted twin, the "Know Nothing Bureaucrat." This knave is just as difficult to work with and just as likely to move things briskly in the wrong direction. When confronted with actual issues and decisions, this knave is likely to seek the refuge of helpless ignorance, coyly acknowledging that "this computer stuff is too darn complicated." Because of feigned or actual ignorance, the Know-Nothing Bureaucrat is just unlikely as his evil twin to involve community people in community decision-making. It is far easier to quietly receive the wise counsel of other knaves (the Big Money Commodifier, for example) whose vast pool of knowledge (and political muscle) perfectly complements the KNB's void. Unfortunately for those who believe that freedom of speech is fundamental to democracy, both of these bureaucrats -- the empty-headed and the overfull -- are only too each to boost their knave score by advocating new forms of cyber-censorship.

Beyond Knavery

Of course the vast majority of people are not knaves at all. Yet occasionally we all succumb to their spells. Many people, unfortunately, have never been exposed to views that challenge the slogans and programs of the knaves. Since their views are not being challenged effectively, our ability as citizens to think about the range of possible futures has become seriously constricted. We do not adequately grasp the profound limitations of current public "dialogue", our historical opportunity, or the potential strength of our dedication and leadership.

It may already be too late to halt or, even, to slow down the mission of the cyber-knaves. Their breach may be too profound, their occupation too entrenched, their momentum too strong. Yet it would be craven to give up before we've even started. We must not let their head start or vast resources pre-empt a citizen's campaign for democratic technology.

A campaign for democratic technology will be waged with words, the time-tested weapons of democracy. Write editorials. Bring the assumptions and motives of the knaves into the public eye. Are new directions in technology serving citizens or corporations? Engage the government. It's at least nominally democratic and is obliged to listen to "ordinary" citizens as well as large corporations. Help it define new roles that strengthen the citizenry. Join with others and raise the important issues. Build democratic technology like free community networks, access centers in community centers, and technology projects in low-income housing. And, perhaps most importantly, educate yourself. We have nothing to lose except access to a new democratic technology, a technology that may never be realized.

The struggle for the next medium has begun. But most of us idly sit and watch the campaign of the cyber-knaves. Unfortunately, it is not just another lurid and ill-conceived docu-drama. It's the unfolding history of a communications medium, and the passive observer may turn out to be the biggest knave of all, for allowing -- once more -- humankind's great potential to become debased, inequitable, and insipid.

Doug Schuler
Doug Schuler is a Computer Professional and a founding member of the Seattle Community Network. For over 15 years Doug has been engaged with issues relating to society and computing, mostly as an activist with CPSR. Currently, he is a member of the faculty (part-time studies) at The Evergreen State College in the Computers and Society area. Doug has been invited to Asia, Europe, and North America to make presentations on the Internet and democracy. Publications: New Community Networks: Wired for Change, 1996. Reinventing Technology, Rediscovering Community, 1997.