Could wiki-wisdom be wrong? Maybe the Internet isn’t about freedom, information and community. Maybe it’s really about entrepreneurs making money. And could our frantic clicking simply be an attempt to distract ourselves from the limits of being mortal? Inescapable stuff like loneliness, sexual rejection and death?
In his new book, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob, cultural critic Lee Siegel casts an aggressively contrarian eye at some of the mythology surrounding the Web. The author of two earlier books, he accepts that the Web makes life marvelously convenient. And he’s not a Luddite, living off the power grid. The former art critic for Slate.com, Siegel was suspended from The New Republic for posting anonymously about his own articles on the magazine’s Web site. (He explains his actions.)
The best aspect of this well-argued book is the pugnacious Siegel’s willingness to be labeled a change-hating elitist by pointing out certain unpleasant realities. Yes, there are more than 70 million blogs in existence today. But, he writes, “Not everyone has something meaningful to say. Few people have anything original to say. Only a handful of people know how to write well.”
And there’s more: Self-expression isn’t art. Online anonymity allows people to behave in destructive ways, with the Web resembling a cruel digital high-school slam book obsessed with popularity. He also argues that living online lets people become more isolated and narcissistic, less engaged with messy reality and the satisfactions of actual human contact. The Web also allows instant and unprecedented access to pornography.
Others have raised these issues. What makes Siegel’s book so thought-provoking is the way he delineates the economic forces behind the Web. Its visionaries are businesspeople. They want to make money. That’s fine.
But Siegel exhorts readers to recognize that the Web is primarily about creating consumers,…