My editor has written me the following: “College is now irrelevant to anyone with a good mind who knows what he wants from life. Higher Education is now just a place for group socialization or for those who need to be given discipline and direction. Digital platforms have democratized knowledge.” It seemed to me I’d heard similar thoughts before, and after a while I remembered where. In an essay I used to teach back toward the turn of the century, “Wouldn’t You Rather Be at Home,” Ellen Ullman wrote,
What had happened between 1995… and…1998 was the near-complete commercialization of the Web. And that commercialization had proceeded in a very particular and single-minded way: by attempting to isolate the individual within a sea of economic activity. Through a process known as ‘disintermediation,’ producers have worked to remove the expert intermediaries, agents, brokers, middlemen, who until now have influenced our interactions with the commercial world….
[All italics following are mine] “Removal of the intermediary. All those who stand in the middle of a transaction, whether financial or intellectual: out! Brokers and agents and middlemen of every description: good-bye! Travel agents, real-estate agents, insurance agents, stock-brokers, mortgage brokers, consolidators and jobbers – who needs you?….Even the professional handlers of intellectual goods, anyone who sifts through information, books, paintings, knowledge, selecting and summing up: librarians, book reviewers, curators, disc jockeys, teachers, editors, analysts – why trust anyone but yourself to make judgments about what is more or less interesting, valuable, authentic, or worthy of your attention?
Ullman, herself a software engineer and consultant, and a perceptive and thoughtful observer, failed to anticipate the step that’s followed disintermediation. That step might be called “re-intermediation,” meaning the replacement of those old-fashioned human intermediaries by cookies, algorithms and web pages dominated by the self-worship of their designers and serving the profit motive. She also failed to consider the side effects this substitution might foster. (She did recognize that some side effects would likely occur: “I’ve long believed that the ideas embedded in technology have a way of percolating up and outward into the nontechnical world at large, and that technology is made by people with intentions and, as such, is not neutral.”
The futurist writer Edward Bellamy was quick to imagine the side effects of the new technology of sound recording. In “‘With the Eyes Shut,’” (Harper’s New Monthly, October, 1889) considering the infiltration of the phonograph into daily life [he suggested] that the phonograph has “’improved the time’ by invading privacy, spewing propaganda, and substituting generic patter for considered responses. It has become indispensable by making its users expect the constant stimulation of news, information, and sound. It has made the skills of reading and spelling obsolete; even more ominous, it has become a substitute for face-to-face interaction. People could communicate by recorded cylinder, or with automatons standing in for moral and political leaders” (Linda Simon, Dark Light, Harcourt, Inc., 2004, pp. 266-267).
Bellamy’s vision failed to materialize, at least so far as the phonograph was concerned. People soon proved far more interested in listening to recorded music than recorded words, so their literacy was not obliterated, and since people found it easy to gather around the phonograph, and later the radio, face-to-face interaction didn’t end, either, though it began to move down the long road toward the atomic family and the “interest group.”
In 1909, The British novelist E. M. Forster imagined a world in which an ostensibly poisoned earth drove people to live in an underground hive, each cell inter-connected by electronic means remarkably like our internet. (For a full account of Forster’s tale, click on this link.) His view of the imagined side-effects of this imagined society were no more sanguine than Bellamy’s.
But these early skeptics didn’t have a chance of being taken seriously, for a massive change in public attitudes toward technological change had already come about: “With the further development of industrial capitalism, Americans celebrated the advance of science and technology with increasing fervor, but they began to detach the idea from the goal of social and political liberation.” Instead they embraced “the now familiar view that innovations in science-based technologies are in themselves a sufficient and reliable basis for progress.”
That has certainly been the case for the digital innovations over the past forty years. Computers and internet access have been embraced without discernible reservations by consumers and by the business, government and education communities. The observable results? Let’s ask Johnny.
Johnny, a college freshperson this year, was born in 2002, so he’s never known a world without cell phones, internet access or ubiquitous digital film effects. If he is typical, he has spent nearly 11 hours of each of his days looking at a screen – computer, smart phone, tablet or television. Nearly 9 of those hours have been devoted to “entertainment media.” If Johnny has been getting his suggested 8 hours of sleep, he’s had about 5 hours out of every day to develop a good mind and figure out what he wants out of life. That’s if he didn’t decide that what he wanted out of life was to get high, play sports, eat and hang out. If he did want to do any or all of those things, he didn’t have much if any time left to think further about “what he wanted from life.”
Those 11 hours of screen time have been exclusive of the hours spent in school. (forbes, ibid) During his school day, has Johnny been studying his native or another language – how to read it, how to use it to express himself, how to critically analyze it? Nope. He’s been looking at more screens. Johnny has graduated from high school with certain abilities: he has learned to choose pre-selected answers to questions he didn’t formulate. He has learned that this ability constitutes “accountability.” His ability to read and interpret those questions and answers marks about the limit of his ability to read or understand anything. He has not been required to read many if any books during his schooling. If his parents are among the two-thirds of Americans who never read books for pleasure, he has not been encouraged by precept or example to read any books outside school. Nevertheless, my editor would have Johnny eschew higher education and strike out on his own, finding what further instruction and knowledge he might feel the need for on the internet.
Now, I will not dispute that the internet contains a nearly overwhelming collection of information. It can all be Johnny’s, if he knows how to find it. And if he can read it. And if he can assemble it into meaningful patterns. Poet and radio commentator Andrei Codrescu, in the early days of the internet, wrote, “An observer in, let’s say, the sixteenth century, would be astonished to see the quantities of sheer information consumed by an average American in an average town on an average day. Our sixteenth-century observer would, at first, faint from the sheer excitement and delight at the volume of knowledge, and then would try to grab as much of it as possible. He or she would, however, be able to grab no more than about five minutes worth from our media before short-circuiting and vanishing in a puff of smoke….Because a sixteenth-century observer, unlike a twentieth-century consumer, would try to make sense of the information by connecting it” (Andrei Codrescu, “Intelligent Electronics,” New Affinities, Pearson Custom Publishing, 2001).
To illustrate Codrescu’s point, a smattering of headlines from the stories the Google news feed has presented during the past few months:
Parents arrested after 4-year-old boy finds gun, shoots himself
Death’s Door is a must for those looking to scratch the itch of a classic Zelda dungeon-delving
Perfectly preserved 310-million-year-old fossilized brain found
US ranks last in healthcare among 11 wealthiest countries despite spending most
Ammunition shelves bare as U.S. gun sales continue to soar
Yes, the villain Starro in ‘The Suicide Squad’ is a vengeful starfish
A potato named Doug may be the largest ever unearthed
Ted Cruz condemns Big Bird for advocating Covid vaccines for kids
Meta Shows Research Towards Consumer Force Feedback Haptic Gloves
We all must go to Peppa Pig World, says UK PM Johnson in speech flap
World’s first living robots can now reproduce, scientists say
Pope Francis warns young people not to be tempted by consumerist sirens.
I suggest that you wouldn’t have to be born in the sixteenth century to be reduced to a puff of smoke if you tried to assemble even those few bits of “news” into some sort of coherent picture of your world. If Johnny seeks to look into the News Behind This News, he will encounter the commercialization of the Web Ullman noted, at a level she could scarcely have imagined.
Let’s say Johnny wants to find more detail behind the Pope’s warning to young people. He clicks on the headline, and after a second’s teaser view of the Story, his screen is covered by a pop-up for some iteration of Fox News: “Be the first to know! We’ll tell you about cool new site features, games, puzzles and more / Enter your email Count Me In!” (In red button awaiting Johnny’s click). Johnny decides against investing in this enticement and X’s it out to return to the Pope.
The first thing he sees, over the entire top third of the recovered screen, is not the Pope, but a set of photographs advertising OM Premium Quality Caviar. Below that, the headline he first selected appears again followed immediately by large boxes advertising “Fox News FLASH HEADLINES” (to which Johnny may subscribe) and King Sooper’s offer of “Lay’s Potato Chips Classic / Final Cost $1.88* / * When you buy 3 With Card” (That proviso is added in about a 5-point font).
Johnny ignores these intrusive pitches to get to The Story itself, which follows for 3 paragraphs, the first of them reading, “Pope Francis ended his visit to Greece Monday by encouraging its young people to follow their dreams and not be tempted by the consumerist ‘sirens’ of today that promise easy pleasures.” The next two paragraphs contain no further mention of the Pope’s anti-consumerist message, dealing instead with the weather during his departure from Greece and the location of his final visit there.
The Story is then interrupted by a series of small, animated photographic panels showing young women in nearly transparent undergarments made by a firm called Lunya.
Below this appears: POPE FRANCIS VISITS CYPRUS AND URGES PEOPLE TO HEAL DIVISIONS, below which is a 3/4 screen photo captioned “Pope Francis arrives for a meeting with young people . . . in Athens, Greece.” Flanking this along the right one-quarter of the screen is, “More from Fox News / Celebrities with face tattoos / Tucker Carlson: We’re in for a whole new . . . / Allergy sufferers have nearly 40% lower risk of . . . / Former UCF running back Otis Anderson Jr Shot . . . / Kyle Rittenhouse reveals what will become of AR-15 . . . / Alec Baldwin hits back at George Clooney’s respon . . . / Sponsored Stories / Ads by Yahoo / 7 Ways to Retire Comfortably with $500k (Photo of middle-aged white couple who look so happy they must have just ingested a life-threatening drug) / Worst Colleges in America (photo of 3 busty cheerleaders filling out sweaters reading ‘U S Indecipherable Lettter’)”. Then, at last, The Story reappears. This time, two complete paragraphs are devoted to the Pope’s warning:
He echoed a common theme he has raised with young people, encouraging them to stay fast in their faith, even amid doubts, and resist the temptation to pursue materialist goals. He cited Homer’s Odyssey and the temptation posed by the sirens who ‘by their songs enchanted sailors and made them crash against the rocks.’
‘Today’s sirens want to charm you with seductive and insistent messages that focus on easy gains, the false needs of consumerism, the cult of physical wellness, of entertainment at all costs,’ he said. ‘All these are like fireworks: they flare up for a moment, but then turn to smoke in the air.’
The Story then veers to a Syrian refugee’s account of his family’s travails reaching Greece after their home was blown up. This paragraph is followed by the headline
POPE FRANCIS BRINGS HOPE TO THE POOR IN ASSISSI VISIT
over a full-screen photo captioned, “Pope Francis visits Aint Dionysius School of the Ursuline Sisters in Athens Greece,” to the right of which appears the previously seen Lunya ad with young women in underwear. Then two more paragraphs of The Story containing the Pope’s reflections on the Syrian refugee’s odyssey, which concludes with the Pope’s adjuration to “‘Dream big! And dream together!'” then another identical Lunya ad, another photo of the Pope in Athens, then the final paragraph of The Story:
“Francis is returning to the Vatican with some important pre-Christmas events on his agenda: a scheduled meeting with the members of a French commission that investigated sexual abuse in the French Catholic Church; a scheduled meeting with Canadian indigenous peoples seeking a papal apology for abuses at Catholic-run residential schools; and Francis’ own 85th birthday on Dec. 17.”
This is immediately followed by “Sponsored Stories You Might Like,” which are:
Blonde with large breasts in 2 flanking photos, captioned “We All Had a Crush on Her, Where Is She Now”
Photo of four hotdogs in buns with condiments erupting from them, captioned “Costco Is Dropping These Customer Favorites”
Nubile young woman in yard photo flanked by photo of moose in fenced back yard, captioned “Maybe This Is Why Australia Is Full of Dangers”
Photo of hand holding credit card and 2 $100 dollar bills, captioned “Do Your Holiday Shopping & Get a $200 Bonus”
Photo of tray of eggs in refrigerator, captioned “Why Europeans Don’t Refrigerate Their Eggs”
Photo of Blonde woman making disappointed moue, captioned “The Cast Finally Admit That The Show Is Fake.”
After a “Start Your Free Trial” offer to stream Fox Nation, there is the “Conversation” section, purporting to contain 379 comments, whose depth is reflected in this early one by someone calling himself “RepubicMatters”:
If the consumer stops spending his money, the economy will come crushing down unfortunately. Innovation is driven by wonton shopping by the consumer.
I’m not sure whether my editor considers “a good mind” to be a genetic gift, or, if he does, he thinks it a gift in need of further development, but let’s grant that Johnny has one. I’ll even grant that he “knows what he wants from life” – some people do, after all, seem to discover their lives’ purposes in their early years.
Since he has sought to examine the Pope’s purported remarks about “consumerist sirens,” we can assume he gives some credence to papal opinions and wants to discover how the Pope has gone about supporting them. What he finds are arguments from simile – the Pope referring to the sirens in The Odyssey, which it is highly unlikely Johnny has read, and to fireworks, which Johnny has probably seen, at least on television. Perhaps the Pope’s reference to the Odyssey piques his interest, and he googles “Sirens.” Here is what he first encounters:
“Top banner: K-12 Pandemic Funding / How should you prepare for reporting? switch:
Duluth Trading company logo – Address, hours In-store shopping/ Curbside pickup XDelivery
Who are the sirens in The Odyssey?
Expert Answers ?
Ad Windigo Logistics Hiring Now
photo of huge empty warehouse
then on to Peak Vista Community Health Centers then
This Day In History
1964 Sam Cooke American singer-songwriter
dies
1901 Marconi transmits first radio signal across
ocean and so on with a continuing string of
completely unrelated factoids
A:
JENNIFER RODRIGUEZ
CERTIFIED EDUCATOR
Sirens are Greek mythological beings best known for their brief but memorable appearance in Homer’s The Odyssey.
According to Greek lore, sirens have human heads and bird-like bodies. They sing beautifully and use their songs (also sometimes referred to as siren calls) to kill sailors who travel near… then a box containing:
Unlock This Answer Now (large font)
Start your 48-hour free trial to unlock this answer and thousands more. Enjoy enotes ad-free and cancel anytime.
Red Box, white letters: Start your 48-hour Free Trial / to the right of which is:
Ask a Question
Box: Enter Your Question for The Odyssey Submit Question buzzer
Popular Questions
What are 3 examples of times when Odysseus demonstrated epic hero/god like qualities in The Odyssey?
Then another This Day in History Box that alternates history factorids with ads for various companies
What are the challenges that Odysseus had to face on his journey home?
Who does Odysseus encounter in the Land Of The Dead in Homer’s Odyssey?
Then across the bottom, 3 individual ads for Detox & Residential Treatment quickly replaced by an Instant Cash Offer on Johnny’s car, Te Witcher on Netflix, and a Colorado Springs DUI attorney, replaced in their turn by Duluth Trading Company ads /
then Related Questions:
Who are the Laestrygonians in The Odyssey
ad: The Truth about side sleepers quickly replaced by Mens’ Cold Weather Clothing Sheels (They also sell dumbbells, barbells and weights)”
If Johnny is able to pick out the Certified Educator’s explanation of “Sirens” from the welter of unrelated advertising and irrelevant information blobs, will he have come much closer to a deeper understanding of the Pope’s message? Or will he be left wondering where to find killer singers with birdlike bodies? Perhaps they have been sleeping on their sides too long, or neglecting their barbells.
Are there internet sites of information free of these sorts of irrelevancies and commercial interruptions? There are. Are they likely to appear among the first 100 listings for any Google or other commercial search engine? They are not. How is Johnny to know of their existence, unless his use of the internet has been given some discipline and direction by mentors who know that serious information sites exist, know how to find them, and know what specific sorts of searches they’re good for? And who are themselves governed by values other than pecuniary?
Absent such instruction, Johnny is more likely than not to wind up believing all sorts of cockamamie nonsense simply because he encountered it on the internet. He has little in his own hard drive with which to sift and compare whatever “information” he runs into, since “rote memorization” has been in bad academic odor since before he was born, and since he has not learned to read critically and skeptically, but solely for purposes of regurgitation.
Nor is the internet, his source of information, regulated by any agency devoted to such antiquated values as truth, accuracy, or the good of society. The sole regulators of the internet are the engineers of commerce, and their values are those of what Jules Henry called “pecuniary philosophy,” which he described thus: “The heart of truth in our traditional philosophies was God or His equivalent, such as an identifiable empirical reality. The heart of truth in pecuniary philosophy is contained in the following three postulates:
Truth is what sells.
Truth is what you want people to believe.
Truth is that which is not legally false. (Jules Henry, Culture Against Man, 50)
The owners of the corporate behemoth tend to be pretty well along in years, and so must employ members of the younger digital generations to actually operate this gorgeous new engine of commerce. And it has been apparent almost from the birth of the internet that these technologically hip youngsters, the re-intermediators, share certain characteristics – those common to young adolescents. They love to fantasize about super-powers, seemingly human characters immune to the physical laws that limit actual humans. They have learned to command the new digital technologies so that they can make astonishingly convincing moving images of these fantasy creatures. They are enthralled by their own technological expertise, and unconcerned with the purposes to which it is being put. And they hold any other humans not members of their in-group in utter contempt.
Ellen Ullman, in her earlier mentioned essay, took note of the latter attitude, meditating on a billboard whose message was now the world really does revolve around you: “Every time I saw it, its message irritated me more. It bothered me the way the ‘My Computer icon bothers me on the Windows desktop, baby names like ‘My Yahoo’ and ‘My Snap’; my, my, my; two-year-old talk; infantilizing and condescending” (Ullman, op cit, 289).
The internet’s hegemony over today’s communications reminds me of Bellamy’s premature prediction: “It has become indispensable by making its users expect the constant stimulation of news, information, and sound. It has made the skills of reading and spelling obsolete; even more ominous, it has become a substitute for face-to-face interaction.” It would be pretty to think that Johnny might somehow be immune to these effects, but given the amount of time he spends immersed in them, that seems unlikely. And so, Johnny may bravely struggle to hear the Pope’s warnings, but it’s more likely that he will find himself distracted from them by the overwhelming commercial clamor that surrounds, interrupts, and contradicts them. The same will likely be true for his further searches for a meaning beyond wonton shopping. For the internet, the only place he can imagine to conduct his searches, has for its all-pervasive meaning the relentless encouragement of that very wonton shopping.
Nearly one hundred years ago, Matthew Josephson wrote a long analysis of the workings of the first generation of capitalist titans in America, The Robber Barons. Speaking of John D. Rockefeller’s South Improvement Company, he explained the origin of his title: “Entrenched at the ‘narrow’ of the mighty river of petroleum they could no more be dislodged than those other barons who had formerly planted their strong castles along the banks of the Rhine could be dislodged by unarmed peasants and burghers” (120). Our passionate, spreadeagled embrace of the entry of computer networks into every aspect of our lives, commercial, public, and personal, has given the economic forces which have created and learned to exploit those networks a power that
would have drawn the astonished envy of Rockefeller, Morgan and Gould. The internet in a couple of short generations has grown its castles at the narrows of every river in the world.
I find it highly doubtful that Johnny is going to find the reliable information and the skills with which to assemble it into a working life plan on the internet. I think he is far more likely to become that wonton consumer – of physical objects, of “ideas,” of amusements – that the Pope warned him about, just to the left of the pretty young lady’s silkily encased crotch.
