[Next| Prev| Index] 2/22/96, jnorris@mcn.org, Mendonesia, Ca.,USA

HARDWARE, SOFTWARE, SKINWEAR

     PROLOGUE

     Cultural epiphany, most often specific and localized: Mozart, Da
     Vinci, Impressionism, Paris in the 20's, Einstein etc., is an
     infrequent event. Most rare of all are the paradigm shifts
     wherein entire cultures are subsumed by divine inspiration: The
     Early Greeks, The Children's Crusades, The Renaissance, and most
     recently, the 60's.

     Most of us cut our teeth on the nuclear bomb, huddled under our
     desks wondering at the prospect of total annihilation. Less than
     a decade later we were in an outer-space race with the Soviets
     for the high ground when suddenly, looking through the bomb
     sights, a profoundly affecting image was discerned: The Whole
     Earth.

     Finite, fragile, this image forever changed man's view of himself
     and his place in the universe. Einstein's relativity unavoidably
     entered the mainstream. In an instant the earth was transformed
     from an infinite plain of endless resources to a fixed quanta.
     Kennedy was shot. America's identity crisis worsened. We became
     hyphenated minorities, disconnected sub-sets. The glue had
     suddenly failed. The old forms no longer held. And then, well,
     you know what happened. We know who we are.

     UNIVERSAL INFORMATION SUFFRAGE

     Some twenty five years ago as I was negotiating the jingle bell
     rainbow that on that sunny day arched between Pacific High School
     and my tree-house further out on Long Ridge, I imagined a near
     future wherein access to the Library of Congress would be
     electronically available if not to everyone, at least to
     students, madmen and genius'.

     It would be a giant blow against the conspiracy of ignorance. It
     would be the birthright of every citizen, and it would be free.
     Great things would happen in ways only a mind that could discount
     property laws might imagine. Ah youth!

     A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON OUR WAY TO THE DIGITAL FORUM

     While the iconoclasts were busily exposing the great frauds of
     previous generations, seeds for a new syllabus were sprouted. One
     of those seeds is a giant metamorph: cyberspace.

     Architecture for the mind, elegant, logical, a clear apollonian
     line blazing a bright path across a darkening background of
     increasing social disintegration and apparent chaos, cyberspace
     was found to have peculiar and unanticipated properties, the work
     of some frisky Muse no doubt.

     While all the emphasis has been on control: controlling the code,
     the OS, the data, the profits, the copyright, the market, and
     while millions have been won, lost or stolen, the fact remains:

     THE SEED NEVER EXPLAINS THE FLOWER

     Or, as John Perry Barlow is so fond of saying: Man plans, God
     laughs. I remember John fervently pitching the internet. EFF was
     just forming and Information Superhighway was only a buzzword.
     Wittingly or unwittingly, he and his cohorts propagated a forum
     worthy of Athens in the fifth century B.C. Personally, I think he
     knew.

     The moment we go on-line we tap into a realm of eternal
     perspectives quite independent of the information being served,
     perspectives we instantly recognize and embrace. I see this in
     children all the time. This is the quality that makes cyberspace
     immune to the casual barbarism of modern day political and
     commercial enterprise. It is subject to no other law than the
     free exchange of ideas. It cannot be controlled, owned or
     dominated. Just ask Bill Gates.

     What quality informs this perspective to make it eternal? I would
     have to say it is because the proportions given are on a human
     scale, a scale where we are never too small or too big or in any
     way unsuited to our purpose, where skinwear is logically our
     chief concern and standard.

     No longer passive consumers we become active participants in a
     process that celebrates the most noble of man's attributes, the
     conscious mind. We are allowed to implement our humanity, to
     experience the joy of life found expression, to make art out of
     mud.

     The lesson book we cannot escape from is human experience.
     Nothing can be so beautiful and so significant as the real. The
     internet is neither symbolic nor decorative; direct, refreshing,
     it is more kin to the absolute democracy of Ancient Greece than
     to it's anemic cousin that we live under today. Is representative
     democracy beginning to sound like an oxymoron to you too?

     The internet recasts us all in a venue where human beings are
     seen to be chiefly alike and not irretrievably different and
     isolated. It is for lovers of a human world. Instead of
     emphasizing special characteristics that distinguish us one from
     another, it binds us together in the qualities shared by all
     mankind.

     ABSOLUTE DEMOCRACY

     This unbridled intercourse on the internet has, as is to be
     expected, brought out reactionaries of every stripe, however,
     today we will concentrate on the zebras, those who see things
     only in black and white. These artless patrons of fear would
     abridge our first amendment rights, they would excise our
     genitals, they would turn our children against us. Their raw
     material is ignorance, their allegiance is to power. They care
     nothing about a well furnished mind. They are content with
     double-wide consciousness, Monkey Weird furniture, and TV. If
     there are any books they are abridged editions from the editors
     of Readers Digest and are, for the most part, unread. It's a
     sobering thought when you realize the sheer momentum ignorance
     has going for it. Luckily they can be out-maneuvered.

     Is cyberspace the treacle to their poison? One has only to look
     at the fall of the Iron Curtain to recognize that the computer is
     mightier than the sword. In their case it was a question of fax
     machines! Isn't it ironic that during the same week our
     Intelligence community failed to forecast the collapse of the
     Soviet Empire, they did know what Pee Wee Herman was doing in a
     XXXX rated theatre on the Florida panhandle in the off-season.
     Perfect.

     Is absolute democracy seditious? Hardly. Homer's hero cried for
     more light, even if it were but light to die in. A slave is he
     who cannot speak his thought. Thoughts and ideas are the fair and
     immortal children of the mind. Do they think they can stop us
     now?

     The Decency Act is a feeble Trojan horse that by all rights
     should be put out to pasture once and for all. Its proponents
     refuse to see that the Sacred Monster has already eaten their
     young and is poised to swallow them too.

     Take heart. Rejoice in life. Unless mankind is alien to you, the
     world is a beautiful and delightful place to live in. At last the
     Hearth and the Quest have been joined! Have fun. Be vigilant.

     EPILOGUE

     A nineteenth century English Lord took it into his head to visit
     America and see for himself the great wild west. He took passage
     on a ship bound for New Orleans and then made it up the
     Mississippi to St. Louis where he turned left and headed west for
     his friend's ranch in Colorado.

     Arriving at the ranch he went up to one of the hands and
     inquired: Is your master at home?

     The grisly cowboy smiled and, looking him square in the eye,
     calmly informed him: The son-of-a-bitch ain't been born yet.

     John Norris for Pacific High Foundation

     e-mail: jnorris@mcn.org jnorris@busybox.com