Re: A Cyberspace Independence Refutation

[lmccarth@cs.umass.edu]

James Donald writes:
[in reply to strata]
> Your other arguments casually dismiss the very real power that large numbers 
> of able people with good communications can exercise, have just exercised
> very recently.

Large numbers of able people with good communications very recently exercised 
their putative "very real power" against the passage of the CDA. They had no
substantial impact AFAICS. (I intend no slur against the effort.)  Could you
name some examples, and add some qualifications that made the difference in
those cases ?

> Nation states are a new creation. In the past many different 
> kings ruled many different bits of one nation, and one king often 
> ruled parts of more than one nation.
>
> Today nation states are almost universal, and people can no longer 
> imagine what a nation is, other than a nation state. 

Just in case I'm one of those who "can no longer imagine what a nation is,
other than a nation state", you should perhaps define the term more
concretely. I guess The Nation of Islam might fit, or the worldwide
community of Palestinians.

> But the net is a nation, and is not a state, and nationalism is a force that 
> governments usually cannot withstand.

OK, first of all I'm not convinced that the net qualifies as a "nation", but
it's hard to say until I better understand what you mean by "nation".

_Strong_ nationalism is a powerful force that governments often exploit to
their own considerable advantage, and indeed also brings down governments
in some cases. Offhand, it looks to me as though the USSR did a decent job
of withstanding various strong internal nationalistic forces for a long time, 
and was brought down mainly by other considerations.

> What makes a government strong is its cohesion, but the state cannot
> create its own cohesion. When states attempted to confront nationalism, 
> they often lost cohesion and vanished altogether, like a string of sand. 
>
> The "Nation state" is in essence a tactic for avoiding this hazard.

Perhaps "often" is the case; from previous experience, I suspect your grasp 
of the relevant history is clearly superior to mine. (You have some great
stuff on your web pages.) I note that you did not claim "all".

> Governments are acutely aware of this problem, and act very cautiously 
> in the face of such threats. Many people seem to imagine that a 
> government innately and naturally has cohesion, that it is naturally 
> one thing, naturaly capable of acting coherently and cohesively as 
> an individual can. On the contrary, governments maintain their 
> cohesion with difficulty, and continually act, or refrain from acting,
> in fear that they might lose it.

OK, but govts. do indeed manage to muster plenty of cohesion in various
actions. 

> In an all out knock down battle between a particular government and the
> internet, in a state where a substantial proportion of the middle class
> was on the internet, the government would be in serious danger of 
> evaporating like a jellyfish in the sunshine.

I disagree, but assertions will get us nowhere.

> The government can get away with a substantial amount of harassment and 
> restraint, but has only limited power to act without itself being acted 
> on, to change the world without itself suffering change.

Sure, but the govt. has been changed before and can change again.

I'm honestly very happy to see all this optimism. But unless and until my
pessimism fundamentally changes, I couldn't sleep at night if I were to lie
down and accept the optimistic claims.

-Lewis	"You're always disappointed, nothing seems to keep you high -- drive 
	your bargains, push your papers, win your medals, fuck your strangers;
	don't it leave you on the empty side ?"  (Joni Mitchell, 1972)