“I
just think that their flight from and hatred of technology is self-defeating.
The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of
a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of
a mountain or in the petals of a flower.”
One of my favorite ironies of
the digital revolution is that it has produced an enormous amount of print
literature. The future, as they say, may be now,
but the paperless future is still a distant land. Walk into any major bookstore and the new release areas in
non-fiction, cultural studies, technology, and computers, spills over with books
- books about books, books about information, books about computers, books about
how all of this intersects, and most of all: books about how these forces will
shape out future. In this last area
of speculation and contemplation, there are two main camps.
Those who idealize the techno-future in a thousand different ways, and
those who warn (often with a mighty nostalgia for some other imagined simpler
time) of serious dangers in a thousand different ways.
Then, and I thank the gods of clarity and sanity for this, there are
those like James O’Donnell.
Avatars
of the Word
is refreshing for several reasons. Because “The style of these chapters is
deliberately associative and informal.”, it is an immense pleasure to read.
This is not to say that weighty, linear, structured, thick academic prose
can’t be a pleasure to read, but that too much of it can sit in the head like
cold oatmeal in the gut. What is equally welcome to this reader and thinker is
O’Donnell’s intelligent patience born of historical understanding.
I thank him for not rushing to zealous contempt or blind praise of our
future. O’Donnell places himself,
rightly so, at the intersection of two worlds.
A revolution is a time of transition, but also a time of returning.
James Beniger, in his book The
Control Revolution (an example of the previously mentioned weighty,
structured, academic book - yet of the pleasure to read variety) writes:
“Revolution, a term borrowed from astronomy, first appeared in political
discourse in seventeenth-century England, where it described the restoration of
a previous form of government. Not
until the French Revolution did the word acquire its currently popular and
opposite meaning, that of abrupt and often violent change.” O’Donnell would
like for us, as did Beniger, to see this word in both of its implications - a
return as well as a great change. The communications revolution that computer
technology has brought is a revolution in the latter sense for sure - its abrupt
and enormous changes are seen daily. But,
as O’Donnell points out, this has happened before.
We can look to the history of writing for clues as to how this revolution
played out before - and how it may again. Yeats’
mighty spheres still turn.
Ray Kurzweil in his new book The
Age of Spiritual Machines, identifies seven stages of technology: Precursor,
Invention, Development, Maturity, Pretenders, Obsolescence, and Antiquity. Where
we are now, with respect to the digital age and the word, is the stage of
Pretenders. “Here an upstart
threatens to eclipse the older technology.
Its enthusiasts prematurely predict victory. While providing some
distinct benefits, the newer technology is found on reflection to be missing
some key element of functionality or quality.”
O’Donnell mentions McLuhan’s famous observation that the content of a
new medium is always an old medium, and finds himself relating to Cassiodorus
who “chose a course that succeeded in placing some new wine in old bottles.”
This is clearly an exciting time to be alive, not only because the future
is unsure (mystery delights us!), but because we have the ability - and
responsibility - to shape this future. As
O’Donnell mentions, Socrates, also living at a time of transition, “ascribes
the invention of writing to a mythical Egyptian, who claims that writing will be
a drug that enhances memory and wisdom - a drug in our modern sense…that is to
say, of ambiguous power, one that may heal or poison.” Heal or poison.
And the choice is ours.
Of the many amazing aspects of
the Internet, the hyperlink is the most powerful.
Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the World Wide Web, writes about his
vision in his book Weaving the Web:
“What that first bit of Enquire code led me to was something much larger, a
vision encompassing the decentralized, organic growth of ideas, technology, and
society. The vision I have for the
Web is about anything being potentially connected with anything.
It is a vision that provides us with new freedom, and allows us to grow
faster than we ever could when we were fettered by the hierarchical
classification systems into which we bound ourselves.”
In Avatars of the Word,
O’Donnell shows how all changes and advances in the history of knowledge have
been towards an increase of access in non-linear ways.
The Web, as we know it now (for surely it will change beyond our
imagination if Moore’s law holds), is just the latest step in the evolution of
man’s non-linear path. Or perhaps the next step in the revolution.
O’Donnell, because he welcomes the opportunities non-linear access
brings to learning and creating, does what more and more print writers should
do: provides us with a homepage on the Web for “the curious reader”.
If one points (the fact that we still use the word “points” is a good
example of new wine in an old bottle) their browser towards http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/avatars,
they will find supplementary material to O’Donnell’s fine book.
There - in cyberspace - non-linear, hyperlinked information is not only
in the form of words, but in several multimedia formats.
There is a talk given by the author that can be downloaded and listened
to, there are photos and further writings, resources for research, and reviews
of the book. It is true that many
books (not to mention all other creations) are likely to be represented in one
form or another on the web, but a truly proactive author would be wise and
thoughtful to take this responsibility into his own hands.
What is clear to both reader
and writer of Avatars of the Word is
the feeling of déjà vu. The fears
and hopes associated with the computer revolution are seen to be eerily similar
to those of previous historical revolutions of technology - including the
invention of writing itself. Besides
the seemingly inherent fear humans have of the “new” (which must stem from
threats of the “unknown”), new technologies are seen as being full of
errors, not being aesthetically pleasing, leading to confusion, and leading to
some sort of spiritual downfall of man (ingrained from the bible? After all, it
was eating from the tree of knowledge that caused our first fall).
But in reading O'Donnell and understanding these revolutions for what
they are, we can see that humans adapt and technologies adapt and soon those
topics that filled the new release areas are filed under history, or completely
forgotten all together. All we can
hope to do is use our historical vision to make informed and valued decisions in
order to control our technology and to prevent it from controlling us. Though this too may prove to be a foolish and dated fear
sometime in the hazy future.
Alexander Zimmerman Coplyleft 02000