Adam Curtis: Have computers taken away our power?
guardian.co.uk
guardian.co.uk
Be it religion through the writings in the bible and actions of the church, printed news papers through the selection of what is reported and the application of the bias of the owners, or radio and television providing a filtered window on the world, there has always been deliberately or otherwise tools out there that have resulted in a large part of the population forming a consensus of opinion and action.
Saying that computers have taken away our "power" is much the same as my parents saying that TV "rots your brain", without taking into account the ability of TV to also expose you to thoughts and ideas that would never have been available to the average person just a couple of generations earlier.
Do computers have the ability to reduce the power of the individual? Of course, in the same way as individual power was taken from those who use to slave in the fields of medieval England or were stuck in the early factories of the Industrial Revolution. This is not to say that it is inevitable that everybody who has anything to do with computers will inevitably loose power to them? again no... some do, but those with the education, drive and ambition to do something powerful for themselves have never had a better chance to embrace the chance and do almost anything they can dream. Those without the ambition will, as always follow the crowd.
This comment suggests to me you don't know much about the Bible or about the Church.
Jesus doesn't teach religion. The Church has virtually no consensus outside the Nicene Creed (and even then that's simply a definition of the Church others will argue for a more liberal or more conservative definition). Christianity is, at the centre, about personal action.
I see what you're getting at, I think. The person of Jesus Christ is like an anchorage point for peoples lives that gives them a certain locus. Computers, though I think we're probably talking about the Web really, do something similar - the Web is like a secret society for everyone who can access it.
>Those without the ambition will, as always follow the crowd.
Which crowd? Like the Church there are focuses of people, lots of them. Unlike IRL one can choose to be allied to almost any group one wishes without geographical restrictions. Online one makes a positive affirmation as to which group one wishes to be allied to. You don't have to, for example, keep visiting a site and taking part in their memes and affirming their groupthink you choose to.
IMO you need more than just ambition, you also need opportunity. To some extent you may be able to make opportunities and this is probably vastly easier if you're wealthy, already well connected, etc., just as in the past.
Through time the communication tools we use have acted as an enabler to ensure that the norms and expectations of that society are expressed clearly, and in most cases provide some modelling of the correct way to behave.
The internet initially allowed a disruption of societal norms. Those so inclined could find online a different society with different norms than the persons physical society. The physical society reacted by branding these individuals with derogatory names such as geek and nerd.. in some cases thinking that the internet had created this divergent behaviour, not realising that the geeks and nerds had always been there, building new things and working with the cutting edge, but now they could almost completely escape from there physical environment and take up full time membership in there online societies. Those members of the first online societies had power, in that they knew how to fully use this new communication methods, whilst everybody else looked on and wondered how the geeks could control this strange new thing, and behave as creators not just consumers that the norms of the physical society required that most people be.
This has again changed. Over the last ten years, the physical society has redefined its norms of media consumption to include the use of online spaces. Peoples communities now have extended onto the Twitters and Facebooks, providing them with yet more channels to consume, and in some cases create.
So what has happened to the geeks and nerds who pioneered this online society? In some cases they were lucky enough to be able to create the environments that define the internet, and are running the systems that the normal people use. In other cases they, still not able to fit into anything that could be considered to be normal are again pushing the limits of what society will allow. In some cases they have dropped out of the internet world, seeing it as being taken over by the "normal" people, and are therefore working wholly in the physical world. In other cases they are pushing (and in some cases breaking) the limits of what is legal online by ensuring the availability of knowledge without restriction, but in all cases they are using the tools they have to create.
So back to the original question, have computers reduced our power?
For most people, they never had any power to start with. They would blindly follow the social norms without question and act as a consumer to the information and entertainment channels that society accepted.
To those who don't accept the status quo... the power is still there. People can still hack society moulding it to find a way to live that they can accept. Computers and the internet are great tools to enhance our abilities and in this way multiply an individuals power in way that has not been seen since the invention of the printing press.