Internet Authorship: A Counter to Technocratic Totalitarianism

Henry David Thoreau's assertion that individuals must be "broken" before becoming enslaved and submissive suggests a grim reality for modern society. Many people exhibit an alarming degree of submission, obeying commands from politicians, bureaucrats, or scientists, regardless of their absurdity, idiocy, or immorality. This compliance, exchanged for protection from minor threats, has inadvertently paved the way for a far more dangerous threat: totalitarianism. However, the rise of the internet, smartphones, and social media may offer a powerful counter-force against those seeking to impose technocratic totalitarianism.

Technology's Influence on Culture and Politics

The adage "politics is downstream from culture" implies that societal culture dictates its governance. Extending this, "culture is downstream from technology," meaning technological innovations reshape how we interact with the world and, consequently, our culture. Communication technologies, in particular, are profoundly impactful because they control the flow of information, which is a source of power. Information shapes our perception of reality, influences our actions, and can legitimize or delegitimize ruling structures. Altering communication technology changes information flow, which in turn changes culture and ultimately the political status quo.

Historical Precedents: Printing Press and Mass Media

Examining past communication revolutions reveals their dramatic societal impact.

The Printing Press Revolution

Marshall McLuhan noted that the "typographic extension of man brought in nationalism, industrialism, mass markets, and universal literacy and education." The invention of Gutenberg's movable-type printing press in the mid-15th century drastically increased the availability of books. An estimated 12 million books were produced in the 50 years following its invention, compared to only 12,000 in the 50 years prior. This reduction in publishing costs democratized information, expanding minds and leading to profound political changes. The proliferation of Bibles fueled the Reformation, and pamphlets were instrumental in the French and American Revolutions. As Andrey Miroshnichenko observed, "As a result of Gutenberg’s invention monarchs were beheaded, world maps were redrawn...Modern society and modern economics were born."

The Rise of Mass Media

The subsequent communication revolution, encompassing the electric telegraph, radio, telephone, and television, diminished the need for physical transportation networks to spread information, effectively shrinking the globe. This ability to broadcast information simultaneously into every home gave rise to the mass media paradigm of the 20th century.

In 1947, The Commission on Freedom of the Press presciently described the power of this new media: "The modern press itself is a new phenomenon. Its typical unit is the great agency of mass communication. Those agencies facilitate thought and discussion. They can stifle it. They can advance the progress of civilization or they can thwart it. They can debase and vulgarize mankind. They can endanger the peace of the world...They can play up or down the news and its significance, foster and feed emotions, create complacent fictions and blind spots, misuse the great words, and uphold empty slogans."

Mass media, particularly radio and television, established a top-down information flow. A select few who owned and operated broadcasting infrastructure, often in collaboration with wealthy and powerful individuals and corporations, filtered, manipulated, and packaged content to serve their interests. Andrey Miroshnichenko described mass media as a "valve, which opens for money or when given permission to by the authorities."

This centralized control fostered unprecedented conformity in worldviews and was ideal for promoting ideologies that favored top-down control. Those controlling mass media could direct public attention towards or away from specific issues. Michael Parenti explained, "If the press cannot mold our every opinion, it can frame the perceptual reality around which our opinions take shape...they set the issue agenda for the rest of us, choosing what to emphasize and what to ignore or suppress, in effect, organizing much of our political world for us." George Orwell's 1984 depicted this power as "tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing."

The Nazis effectively utilized mass media to gain public acceptance for totalitarian rule. Joseph Goebbels, Nazi propaganda minister, stated, "Our way of taking power and using it would have been inconceivable without the radio..." Gordon Allport and Hadley Cantril, in their 1935 book The Psychology of Radio, echoed this, calling radio "a altogether novel medium of communication, preeminent as a means of social control and epochal in its influence upon the mental horizons of men."

This unidirectional, limited, and filtered information flow, controlled by a select few and presented to the masses, mirrors Plato's allegory of the cave. Prisoners, chained and forced to watch shadows on a wall, mistake these shadows for reality. Richard Weaver, in Ideas Have Consequences, likened mass media to "a translation into actuality of Plato’s celebrated figure of the cave."

The Internet Revolution: Emancipation of Authorship

The internet revolution offers a means for the masses to escape this "cave of manipulated shadows." When individuals identify corruption, expose lies, or recognize propaganda, they can share their discoveries with a potentially vast audience. The internet is dismantling the mass media's monopoly on information flow. If the printing press led to the "emancipation of readership," then the internet, as Miroshnichenko states, represents the "emancipation of authorship." Personal computers and mobile devices have given everyone "the unlimited right to share their thoughts with others, whatever their reason."

The transformative potential of this "emancipation of authorship" remains to be fully seen, but historical analogies suggest "comparable cataclysms." Miroshnichenko posits that "The powers of the old authorities...have always collapsed along with their loss of sacral control over information. As a result, the social, political and economic status quo falls apart. With every release of content, society sheds its old form, like a snake sheds its skin."

Constructive and Destructive Impacts of Information Flow

The internet's information flows are not solely destructive; they also reveal alternative possibilities for societal operation and individual lives. Ideas previously suppressed by mass media, such as alternatives to inflationary monetary systems, government control of education and healthcare, or existing political structures, are now being disseminated. This new media paradigm fosters the "creative destruction" necessary to prevent societal stagnation.

However, this free flow of information threatens the parasitic lifestyles of those in power, leading to increased calls for censorship. These calls are often justified as necessary to combat "hate speech" and "misinformation," but these excuses are merely attractive packaging for the socially destructive act of stifling free speech to protect powerful interests. The emancipation of authorship directly challenges the legitimacy of the oligarchical class of politicians, bureaucrats, and crony capitalists, undermining their ability to manipulate public opinion behind the veil of controlled mass media. As Gustave Le Bon noted in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, "The gods and men who have kept their prestige for long have never tolerated discussion. For the crowd to admire, it must be kept at a distance."

The Ongoing Battle for Information Control

Attempts to limit information flow are not new. Following the printing press's invention, European ruling classes implemented harsh censorship laws, such as the English Licensing Order of 1643, which authorized the arrest of those printing anti-government books. Yet, the printing press's power proved too strong to contain. Marshall McLuhan observed, "Once a new technology comes into a [society] it cannot cease to permeate that [society] until every institution is saturated."

While history rhymes, it does not repeat exactly. Passivity in the face of attempts to stifle free speech could lead to a different outcome for this technological revolution. If those in power learn to leverage this new paradigm to their advantage, these technologies, instead of liberating, could become tools for a "technocratic global totalitarianism." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in The Gulag Archipelago, warned about the dangers of a lack of independent public opinion: "So long as there is no independent public opinion in our country, there is no guarantee that the extermination of millions and millions for no good reason will not happen again, that it will not begin any night – perhaps this very night."