_1984_ Foreword: Pynchon & the Internet

[pynchonoid]

Pynchon's brief comments about "computer technology
circa 2003" and "the Internet, a development that
promises social control on a scdale those quaint old
twentieth-century tyrants with their goofy mustaches
could only dream about" (p. xvi) come in the context
of Pynchon's overview of Orwell's "prophecy" and
"predictions" and how they have . Pynchon does not
explore the financial dynamics of the Internet. Nor
does he elaborate on the details of how the Internet
will deliver this social control. 

Lessig's observation, in his blog below, is accurate
to the state of the Internet circa 2003, and I'm
assuming that since Pynchon appears to have been
watching the development of computer and
communications technologies snce 1984, he knows what's
happening with them.  

The same multinational corporations that control the
traditional publishing business are rapidly reaching
critical mass on the Internet and are in the process
of transforming it into something much more like cable
TV than the Internet we have enjoyed in the past. 
They can now use Web sites to extract extraordinary
amounts of detailed personal and financial information
from individuals -- simply by offering free goodies at
a Web site in exchange for providing this information
by registering and filling out survey forms. Pardon
the shameless self-plug, but I've co-written the only
recent book that shows organizations how to do this. 
(_Firebrands!  Building Brand Loyalty in the Internet
Age_ by Michael Moon and Doug Millison,
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0072124490/qid=1053214457/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-2605801-1116938>)


Meanwhile, intelligence agencies around the world,
following the US lead, monitor email and Web traffic,
and, in China at least, have used the Internet to
crack down on political and religious dissidents. I
expect more intense use of the Internet for homeland
security purposes is underway in the US now, too.

Pynchon doesn't go into this sort of detail in the
_1984_ Foreword, but his observation "the Internet, a
development that promises social control on a scale
those quaint old twentieth-century tyrants with their
goofy mustaches could only dream about" is on the
money as far as it goes.


--- Michael Joseph <mjoseph at rci.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> 
> Lessig's blog however . . .
>  Midway through,
> Andrew Orlowski writes,
> The Internet is dying, he writes. Actually, thats
> not quite what I wrote,
> the quotes not withstanding. What I wrote was: The
> Internet that is to be
> the savior is a dying breed. That is, the end-to-end
> Internet, where the
> edge holds the intelligence, is a dying breed.
> Something called the
> Internet will be with us forever, so in that sense,
> the Internet will
> never die. But the end-to-end internet (the only
> internet that really
> matters to any important issue) is a more fragile
> beast."

> 
> allusion to TP seems misplaced. Did Pynchon's
> "social control" passage
> allude to free market economy issues?
> 
> 
> Michael
> 
> 
> 


=====
<http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/>

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com