Can’t get there from here: The New Literacy

Millions of people are rushing onto the Internet every year with expectations that bear no similarity to what they find. In the 1700s, thousands of people learned to read solely to get at Thomas Paine’s radical writing.^{(Feigenbaum and McCorduck)} How could they have known what ‘literacy’ held in store for them? Were they even ready for what Thomas Paine had in store for them? Some of them no doubt were: the revolutionaries who knew that they wanted to kick out the English and wanted some intellectual backing for their actions. Most likely, everyone else learned to read because they were afraid of the revolutionaries and wanted to know what the hell they were talking about.

Millions--if not billions--of people are also completely ignoring the information highway. Back home for the ‘94 family reunion in Hesperia, Michigan (population: 700; Salute!) few people have heard of the “Internet” or even the “Information Superhighway”, the infobahn that Al Gore is proposing to use their tax dollars to build. Hell, up here in Hesperia we don’t even have universal cable television, and it is the cable industry that will probably be forced to provide the infrastructure for the infobahn, if it’s government-mandated.

What Hesperians are going to find when they finally do get on the infobahn will not blow their minds. They’ll find people around the world to discuss sewing and cooking and cars and cards, and they’ll be amazed at that. Some will even become ‘addicted’ to the infobahn--that is, they’ll spend more time talking with people in Saudi Arabia than they do hanging out with their local friends down at Angelo’s & Ricardo’s.

Let me rephrase that: it will blow their minds. But they’re not going to notice that their minds have been blown. When they talk with someone who was at the modern equivalent of Dallas, or Kent State, or Waco, they won’t need a television show to tell them what happened. When they watch a debate unfold over hot political topics--and even take part occasionally--they’ll find traditional one-way reporting go flat. Most Hesperians will never realize that they’ve gone from being a passive receptacle of news to an in-control researcher. But they will, and just as those who learned to read could never unlearn that knowledge, those of us who join the infobahn can never devolve back to passivity.

This is part of what makes the infobahn so revolutionary. Everyone on the infobahn is an equal; if anyone is afforded more respect, it is the quality of their writing and information, and what they give to the net, that earns them that respect. Two of the most laughed at drivers on the infobahn are Ted Kennedy and the White House. Not because of any general ‘Internet Political Bent’, hell, if anything the preponderance of student activists and educators on the net leans it to the left. There is no respect for kennedy.org and white-house.gov because they don’t take part. They bring their electronic dumpsters onto discussion groups, dump a load of information, and then completely ignore any discussion about that information.

When you say something on the infobahn you need the courage of your convictions: you need to back your statements up in the discussion that follows; you need to clarify your statements in the discussion that follows. Kennedy and the White House merely dump press releases and leave. When they first started doing this, their press releases generated some discussion; now that netizens have discovered that the politicians aren’t willing to take part in any discussion on their own press releases, discussion of them almost never takes place. If neither Kennedy nor the White House care about their press releases, why should the rest of the infobahn?

Other organizations show a little more intelligence. The Libertarian Party and the National Rifle Association both commonly post press releases to various roadways on the infobahn.^{(Political Newsgroups?)} Their press releases generate discussion, because their representatives on the net are willing to take part in the discussion. If you have a question about the Libertarian Party, the Libertarian Party representative will answer it for you. If you want to know why the National Rifle Association supports assault weapons, the NRA representative will answer you.^{(So what about assault weapons?)} And they’ll answer you with reasoned letters, backing up their statements with facts.

That’s how to win friends and influence people on the net. Anyone who tries to back up their statements with hyperbole and emotion will be called on it. They’ll be asked to provide sources and data. Opinions are great, but if you want to espouse your opinions on the infobahn, you’d better have some high-octane facts to back them up.

Which makes it more than entertaining to watch discussions on the infobahn; it becomes an entertaining learning experience. Like the Discovery Channel, but produced by Wayne and Garth, the guys down the street who still live with their mothers.