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Prometheus Wired: The Hope for Democracy in the Age of Network Technology
From all sides, we hear that computer technology, with its undeniable power to disseminate information and connect individuals, holds enormous potential for a reinvigoration of political life. But will the Internet really spark a democratic revolution? And will the changes it brings be so profound that past political thought will be of little use in helping us to understand them?
In Prometheus Wired, Darin Barney debunks claims that a networked society will provide the infrastructure for a political revolution and shows that the resources we need for understanding and making sound judgments about this new technology are surprisingly close at hand. By looking to thinkers who grappled with the relationship of society and technology, such as Plato, Aristotle, Marx, and Heidegger, Barney critically examines such assertions about the character of digital networks.
Along the way, Barney offers an eye-opening history of digital networks and then explores a wide range of contemporary issues, such as electronic commerce, telecommuting, privacy, virtual community, digital surveillance, and the possibility of sovereign governance in an age of global networks. Ultimately, Barney argues that instead of placing power back in the hands of the public, a networked economy seems to exacerbate the worst features of industrial capitalism, and, in terms of the surveillance and control it exerts, reduces our political freedom.
Of vital interest to politicians, communicators, and anyone concerned about the future of democracy in the digital age, Prometheus Wired adds a provocative new voice to the debate swirling around "the Net" and the ways in which it will, or will not, change our political lives.
In Prometheus Wired, Darin Barney debunks claims that a networked society will provide the infrastructure for a political revolution and shows that the resources we need for understanding and making sound judgments about this new technology are surprisingly close at hand. By looking to thinkers who grappled with the relationship of society and technology, such as Plato, Aristotle, Marx, and Heidegger, Barney critically examines such assertions about the character of digital networks.
Along the way, Barney offers an eye-opening history of digital networks and then explores a wide range of contemporary issues, such as electronic commerce, telecommuting, privacy, virtual community, digital surveillance, and the possibility of sovereign governance in an age of global networks. Ultimately, Barney argues that instead of placing power back in the hands of the public, a networked economy seems to exacerbate the worst features of industrial capitalism, and, in terms of the surveillance and control it exerts, reduces our political freedom.
Of vital interest to politicians, communicators, and anyone concerned about the future of democracy in the digital age, Prometheus Wired adds a provocative new voice to the debate swirling around "the Net" and the ways in which it will, or will not, change our political lives.
- GenresTechnologyAcademic
354 pages, Hardcover
First published May 28, 2000
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May 3, 2012
A vintage 2000 critique of digital-utopian claims. Remarkably insightful and prescient, but deeply eccentric. Barney draws extensively on etymology to make claims linking Greek conceptions of politics and craft to networked computers, and provides an analysis based heavily on Heidegger and Marx.
The Marxism works: Barney's analysis of "ownership of the means of production" for workers in the network society is scathing and spot on. Heidegger... his metaphysics is white noise to me, so I can't make anything of claims based on it.
The work has a major flaw twelve years on that might not have been such on publication: much of the book is a detailed general-audiences explanation of every aspect of networked computing, down to a couple pages on what an ATM is. I can't imagine that much of this was actually needful in 2000, as opposed to ten years earlier, and it's a complete waste now. Better to have, as other authors have done, buried most of the detail in an appendix or provided a note that the knowledgeable or incurious should skip chapters devoted solely to lengthy magazine-article-level technological description.
Still, unlike most turn of the century critiques, Barney goes beyond a *rejection* of libertarian-capitalist internet exceptionalism to argue that the fundamental concepts are *technically* wrong: that the network is *not* egalitarian by nature, but rather a tool for capitalist extension and surveillance.
The Marxism works: Barney's analysis of "ownership of the means of production" for workers in the network society is scathing and spot on. Heidegger... his metaphysics is white noise to me, so I can't make anything of claims based on it.
The work has a major flaw twelve years on that might not have been such on publication: much of the book is a detailed general-audiences explanation of every aspect of networked computing, down to a couple pages on what an ATM is. I can't imagine that much of this was actually needful in 2000, as opposed to ten years earlier, and it's a complete waste now. Better to have, as other authors have done, buried most of the detail in an appendix or provided a note that the knowledgeable or incurious should skip chapters devoted solely to lengthy magazine-article-level technological description.
Still, unlike most turn of the century critiques, Barney goes beyond a *rejection* of libertarian-capitalist internet exceptionalism to argue that the fundamental concepts are *technically* wrong: that the network is *not* egalitarian by nature, but rather a tool for capitalist extension and surveillance.
Displaying 1 of 1 review