The following is a great essay on the internet by Hakim Bey :
The implied question:—does the Net further the purpose of communicativeness, and can it be used as a tool to “maximize the potential of the emergence” of convivial situations? Or does there exist a “paradoxical counterproductive effect” (as Illich would say)? In other words: the sociology of institutions shows that certain systems (e.g. education, medicine) attain a monopolistic rigidity and begin to produce the opposite of their intended effect (education stupefies, medicine sickens). Media can also be analyzed in this way. The mass media, considered as a paradoxical entity, has approached the limit of total image-enclosure—a crisis of the stasis of the image—and of the complete disappearance of communicativeness. The unique structure of the InterNet was considered to be its “many-to-many” patterns, the implication being the possibility of an electronic popular democracy. The Net is an institution, at least in the loose sense of the word. Does it serve its “original” purpose, or is there a paradoxical counter-effect?
Link: Seduction of the Cyber Zombies
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