the persistence of control

[Paul Mackin]

On Sun, 2004-04-25 at 13:38, pynchonoid wrote:
> >From cyberpunk's keyboard-jockey fairy tales, to Wired
> magazine's rave-era libertarianism, through the dotcom
> boom's fast-company frontier days, the concept of the
> Internet as an essentially revolutionary space of
> anti-authoritarian freedoms has remained a key
> operative myth, serving the needs of start-up
> hypesters, free-market globalists, and political
> progressives alike. But NYU professor Alexander
> Galloway believes that we should lay these
> techno-utopian fantasies to rest. In fact, he argues
> that at least some of our old notions need to be
> turned upside down. His new book, Protocol: How
> Control Exists After Decentralization (MIT), asserts
> that, far from existing as a counter-hegemonic
> free-for-all, "the Internet is the most highly
> controlled mass media hitherto known." [...] 
> 
> ...read it all:
> Education Supplement: Spring 2004
> by Ed Halter
> This Is Freedom?
> NYU prof Alexander Galloway unmasks the inner workings
> of computer networks
> April 12th, 2004 7:50 PM
> <http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0415/halter.php>
> 


As usual it depends on which variety of Freedom one is talking about.
The kind of freedom the Decentralized Internet exemplifies  isn't the
kind prized by Continental Theorizing.

By drawing too close a parallel between Natural Language and Internet
Protocol, Galloway doesn't stack up even as plausible Critical Theory.

IMHO.