CHAPTER THREE
TOWARD MULTIPLICITY: SOCIAL UPHEAVAL AND THE ENVIRONMENT FOR CHANGE
Major changes in the political
infrastructure of great nations do not come easily. Particularly in America, a nation with a lasting constitution and
strong founding tradition, political reformulation will likely come only during
times of crisis or upheaval. It is not
enough, therefore, to show that the electorate has diversified and has the
potential to form into new political groupings. A multiparty system will come to fruition only if our era of
social change provides the environment for systematic reform.
A transformation to a functioning
multiparty system, after all, would rival any past political alteration. The nearest precedent is the Progressive
era; the Progressives were unmatched in their success at political reform,
implementing the ballot initiative, women's suffrage, and direct election of
senators, creating several new federal departments, and enacting environmental,
health, and labor policies.
The
Progressive era combined religious movements, self-improvement groups, and
political action in a unified program of reform, growing out of a response to
industrialization in combination with massive immigration and new
transportation systems that necessitated interdependence.[1] Part of the impetus for the Progressive era
was the professionalization of politics and religion, along with what John
Dewey called "the increase in the number, variety, and cheapness of
amusements [that] represents a powerful diversion from political concern."[2] A set of complex new political cleavages
including religious revivalism, nationalism, ethnic identification, and
anti-corporate zeal created the social conditions under which transformation of
the political system could occur. It
also coincided with an academic movement, including the development of new
disciplines and a Darwinian paradigm shift in science.
According to Robert Putnam, the
progressive era was "a time very like our own, brimming with promise of
technological advance and unparalleled prosperity, but nostalgic for a more
integrated sense of community."[3] For Putnam, current social changes can be an
impetus for the same kinds of progressive change:
Almost a century ago America had also
just experienced a period of dramatic technological, economic, and social
change that rendered obsolete a significant stock of social capital… within a
few decades of the turn of the century, a quickening sense of crisis, coupled
with inspired grassroots and national leadership, produced an extraordinary
burst of social inventiveness and political reform.[4]
The Progressive program was not intended
to create multiparty democracy but their agenda was one of institutional
redesign; they were able to create the same type of electoral reform movement
that will be necessary to build a multiparty system in the U.S.
Our era not only bears a remarkable
resemblance to the conditions that gave rise to the Progressives, it is also a
time of unique developments that could easily trump progressive levels of
social change. "Humanity," according to futurist Alvin Toffler,
"faces the deepest social upheaval and creative restructuring of all
time."[5] Three major categories of social
transformation seem to be occurring in concert and have been recognized by a
diverse set of scholars under a variety of labels. The first is globalization and the accompanying resistance to it,
Thomas Friedman's Lexus and the Olive
Tree or Benjamin Barber's Jihad v.
McWorld. The related but distinct
rise of the information age, Toffler's "Third Wave" or Francis
Fukuyama's "Great Disruption," should be recognized, along with the
rise of self-replicating technologies, as the second source of change. Somewhat controversially, I will label the
third category of transition "postmodernism" as a heading for
multiculturalism, destabilization of values, the prominence of image, and the
broad shift in cultural attitudes since the 1960s.
These three categories of social change
parallel those in the Progressive era but are more conducive to challenging the
two-party system because each trend will likely diversify group identifications
and entrench multiplicity. It is not
necessary that the reader adopt my formulation of the transformation, only that
one sees the gravity of the changes and the increasing pace of cultural
change. As Newt Gingrich has said,
"The gap between objective changes in the world at large and the
stagnation of politics and government is undermining the very fabric of our
political system."[6]
The Cold War system that defined
international affairs for the last half-century has been replaced by a
transient set of interdependent relationships called globalization.[7] As Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig has
said, "We stand on the brink of being able to say, 'I speak as a citizen
of the world'… We stand just on the cusp of a time when ordinary citizens will
begin to feel the effects of the regulations of other governments."[8] After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the
democratization of lending and investing corresponded with a worldwide trend
toward opening capital markets to foreign investors; these developments broke
down national barriers and put every individual in a position to help shape the
world economy.[9]
According to New York Times foreign affairs correspondent Thomas Friedman,
globalization politics involves a conflict over the balance among states,
between states and capital, and between individuals and states.[10] Globalization is not merely a colonialist
expansion of U.S. hegemony, he says, because it finds ways to include and
co-opt all manner of indigenous cultures.[11] In this context, the Tower of Bable becomes
an important modern metaphor; we are enacting the same kind of plan, designed
to escape limitation and difference through complete cooperation. According to Arthur Ekirch, a parallel era
of internationalization characterized the Progressive era: "The
increasingly interdependent nature of the twentieth-century world economy,
heightened by the revolution in improved means of communication and
transportation, gave a novel international aspect to what had formerly been the
local concerns of each country."[12]
At the beginning of the twenty-first
century, we seem to be reaching what social critic Francis Fukuyama calls
"the end of history," or at least a global political landscape in
which capitalism is the last standing ideology. As Friedman put it, "Once the three democratizations [of
technology, finance, and information] came together in the 1980s and blew away
all the walls, they also blew away all the major ideological alternatives to
free-market capitalism."[13] Because the system of global capital demands
a basic policy framework, political choices are being reduced to brand identity
with only slight policy differences.[14]
Politicians in either government or
opposition cannot afford to speak out against global capital because of
dependence and the speed of reaction; only outsiders are able to make pleas to
other kinds of politics.[15] For instance, the British conservatives
tried to run against globalization in 1996 but eventually embraced the same
basic policies as the government due to lack of alternatives.[16] Wired
writer Paulina Borsook explained the lack of elite understanding of the
dominance of certain perspectives: "The Republican Right really doesn't
understand that the countercultural revolution of the '60s is permanent… the
New Left of the '60s also doesn't seem to understand that the Reagan revolution
of the '80s is permanent."[17]
It is doubtful, also, that the left will
create a true alternative ideology to globalization after socialism because the
globalization backlash is split between very different types of groups.[18] This trend toward the ideological dominance
of capitalism coincides with a rise in the plurality of viewpoints. According to Toffler, "Instead of the
much-touted 'end of ideology,' we may, in both global and domestic affairs, see
a multiplicity of new ideologies spring up."[19] There is, in fact, a conflict between
markets and social order that has been seen by both leftists and cultural
conservatives like William Bennett.[20] Toffler anticipates a new cleavage along the
"politics of levels" between globalists, nationalists, regionalists,
and localists.[21]
The globalization system was built, after
all, on top of an old chaotic set of civilizations in conflict.[22] As social critic Benjamin Barber has pointed
out, "a world that is coming together pop culturally and commercially is a
world whose discrete subnational ethnic and religious and racial parts are also
far more in evidence."[23] Both Barber's identification of the rise of
"Jihad" and Friedman's metaphor of the "Olive Tree"
recognize a competing force with globalization. Friedman explains the
competition:
The biggest threat today to your olive
tree is likely to come from the Lexus-- from the autonomous, transnational,
homogenizing, standardizing market forces and technologies that make up today's
globalizing economic system. There are
some things about this system that can make the Lexus so overpowering it can
overrun and overwhelm every olive tree in sight--breaking down communities,
steamrollering environments and crowding out traditions.[24]
Local centers of unrest are the main
threats to the globalization system.
The threat to military security seems to come not from rogue states or
old cold war enemies but instead from what Friedman calls "the
Super-Empowered Angry Man." As an
alternative to violence and unrest, according to the Dalai Lama, society must
make possible the type of peaceful resistance advocated by Ghandi; humanity has
an inherent need to work towards a better world in the face of globalization.[25] Democratic responses to globalization,
however, have been hard to come by, according to Friedman: "Democracies
vote about a government's policies once every two or four years… but the
Electronic Herd [of global financiers] votes every minute of every hour of
every day."[26]
Hakim Bey theorizes that the crushing of
communism insured that only one global system would dominate and narrowed the
oppositional choices to co-option or resistance. According to Bey, "Everything that was a third possibility
(neutrality, withdrawal, counter-culture, the 'Third World,' etc.) now must
find itself in a new situation. There
is no longer any 'second.'"[27] Some hold out hope, however, for democratic
deliberations about globalization. The
Dalai Lama has summarized the task presented by globalization:
What began with relatively small tribal
units has progressed through the foundation of city-states to nationhood and
now to alliances comprising hundreds of millions of people which increasingly
transcend geographical, cultural, and ethnic divisions…. There is also a clear
surge toward greater consolidation along the lines of ethnicity, language,
religion, and culture…. It is important that the establishment of unions comes
about voluntarily and on the basis of recognition that the interests of those
concerned are better served through collaboration.[28]
Friedman agrees: "One of the biggest
challenges for political theory in this globalization era is how to give
citizens a sense that they can exercise their will, not only over their own
governments but over at least some of the global forces shaping our
lives."[29]
The new political responses to
globalization may come from a variety of angles. According to Friedman, globalization has not killed government;
it has necessitated smarter and faster states that can regulate markets without
choking them, using institutions along the lines of the Securities and Exchange
Commission and the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S.[30] Globalization may also produce widespread
despair as people within democracies realize that they have lost control over
their lives; by buying media and producing legitimizing images, global
corporations can make democracy a "spectator sport."[31]
The
Domestic Politics of Globalization
The Progressive movement developed from a
reluctance to support imperialism and the use of military power to advance
interests abroad, including debates over the World Court and the League of
Nations.[32] Progressivism used both sides of the
globalization debate, allying at times with both nationalist and
internationalist programs.[33] The Progressive movement was connected with
the social democracy movement in Western Europe.[34]
The current integrated political
environment means any local action can take on global dimensions. For instance, students can fight working
conditions in Asia by protesting their own collegiate apparel. In an increasingly globalized world, the
Dalai Lama implores us to consider the universal implications of each action
and explore our complicity in governmental injustice.[35] Much of the current resistance to
globalization through protest has been modeled on globalization itself; it has
been high-tech and coordinated but also increasingly fragmented.
Globalization
is not only an important world phenomenon to which America should take note, it
may be key to the domestic politics of the future. British power drove earlier eras of globalization but America
dominates the new system, which was the force behind institutions like the
International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization.[36] Globalization is perceived as
Americanization by most of the world and part of the backlash is against the
U.S. itself. As the cold war system
played a decisive role in domestic politics, globalization will raise internal
friction when positions become formulated and well known.[37] According to Friedman, "Tip O'Neill was
wrong. All politics isn't local--not
anymore. All politics is now
global."[38]
He believes it will eventually
fundamentally alter the American party system: "Neither the Democratic
Party nor the Republican Party has fully made the shift from the Cold War
system to the globalization system in framing their own politics. They each behave at times as if the world is
now safe for us to be both insular and mindlessly partisan on every
issue."[39] Minority diasporas could easily become major
political groupings in the realm of global politics and ethnic
self-determination could become a more important issue in domestic politics.[40]
With globalization, people can choose
among four different political perspectives, according to Friedman, with a new
cleavage dividing integrationists and separatists.[41] Odd political groupings may begin to
emerge. According to Barber, Muslim
jihadists resemble family values proponents in their critique of modern culture
and mirror rural rebellion against centralized management; Americans face a
domestic jihad and a fundamentalist revival on their own turf.[42]
Environmental degradation is the
quintessential example of a problem that will need to be addressed at the
international level with ties to domestic politics. If citizens of every country were to use cars with the frequency
of those in the U.S., for instance, the earth's resources would be exhausted in
a few years.[43] Even Friedman, who is hardly a Green Party
sympathizer, says that some major party in the developing countries will need
to focus on quality of life issues and "smart growth" in order to be
the center of a world movement.[44]
This notion of global political networks
with counterparts in American domestic politics seems central to the new
era. Because only networked coalitions
can play in the modern world, corporate partnerships have become a model for
activist partnerships. Though the U.S.
does not have supreme power over globalization, it will likely need to be at
the center of coalitions to shape geopolitics.[45] It turns out that globalization is less
likely to connect people in diverse communities than to create what has been
called "transnational colonies of like-minded souls."[46] The shapers of global environmental, human
rights, and workforce norms will likely be non-governmental organizations
involved in setting standards.[47] Geographic distinctions in political
relations will dissolve, according to technology critic Lin Sten:
"Mirroring the global spread of corporations… common interest groups will
become global."[48] Using courts, Internet communications, and
protests of multinational agreements, a global resistance movement to corporate
dominance has already had an influence on companies such as Shell, McDonalds,
and Nike.[49]
Though I will separately explore the
transition to the information age, the bulk of the existing literature has
analyzed it in connection to technological change. The Internet, as a global distributed network, is a metaphor for
the defining features of globalization, integration without central control.[50] Tradition also seems to be being replaced by
an emphasis on future innovation as the legitimizing myth of power relations.[51] The complaints about job losses, Ross
Perot's "giant sucking sound," are also related to both jobs moving
countries and automation.[52]
In parallel, the pre-eminence of image
discussed in the postmodernity section below is in part a product of
globalization. American film and
television dominate the world's construction of images and often take safe but
supposedly liberal political stands.
MTV is the assumed voice of a counterculture; multiculturalism is
artificially embraced, taking the place of any real political representation in
favor of communication through about a dozen global corporations.[53] As Barber puts it, "hard power yields
to soft, while ideology is transmuted into a kind of videology that works
through sound bites and film clips.
Videology is fuzzier and less dogmatic than traditional political
ideology."[54]
Corporate
Control
Globalization
is also a signal of a broader trend toward corporate dominance of societal
decision-making. Multinational
corporations currently represent more that half of the world's 100 largest
economies.[55] The current level of what sociologist
Charles Derber calls "corporate ascendancy" rivals even that of the
gilded age, the economic environment that led to the progressive movement.[56] Corporations, which have traditionally been
legal entities created by the state, have become more powerful than individuals
or governments. Many critics now
believe that Bill Gates is more powerful than the American president.[57]
According to Derber, it is not clear that
corporate and public entities can be separated: "The intertwining of
corporations and government has become so extensive… that the notion of a
democratic balancing act has become a dangerous illusion."[58] Debate over political institutions, he says,
has become an inappropriate foundation for our politics. Corporations have already become the major
targets of resistance movements, according to protest observer Naomi Klein,
because they have wrested authority from politics and religion. Derber proposes an alternative notion of
politics. In the context of corporate
power, he says, there are opportunities for stakeholders to get involved in
corporate decision-making; new political institutions with interest group
representatives could be could be developed to control corporations.
Corporate domination is subtler in
current political relations than it has been in the past. Products are increasingly replaced by
symbolic interactions that emulate lifestyle and entertainment.[59] Corporations are "political
agnostics," according to Barber, but "they nonetheless borrow and
warp political ideas and political terms."[60] According to Klein, it is the focus on
brands that has enabled "astronomical growth in the wealth and cultural
influence of multinational corporations."[61] In the process, she says, we have lost any
unbranded space and all alternative culture has been commodified. Barber states the problem similarly:
"Capitalism once had to capture political institutions and elites in order
to control politics, philosophy, and religion so that through them it could
nurture an ideology conducive to its profits.
Today it manufactures as among its chief and most profitable products
that very ideology itself."[62]
The
Religious Component
Globalization's
commodification of culture is evidenced by increasing appreciation for
alternative religious heritages. Moral
claims have been seen as a potential adversary to the goals of capital; but,
before religion can return to a central role, it must face the trend toward
fragmentation of organized worship. A
return to religious activism in the political context would need to work
through the differences among those who believe that religion should be a part
of politics.[63] According to Fukuyama, "folk religion
has been replaced by a voluntary, congregational sectarianism that depends less
on hierarchical authority than on the collective beliefs of small
communities."[64] New age religion is a different kind of
response to standardization, as it does not seem to use old traditions as a
starting point.[65]
Religious perspectives are already
entering the political debate through curious means. Several of the largest modern marches, the Million Man March and
the Promise Keepers rally, were based on the theme of male moral
responsibility; they approached the subject, however, from very different sides
of the political spectrum.[66] There is even renewed interest in the
Sabbath as an alternative to the modern 24-hour connected world.[67] According to Bey, anti-capitalist coalitions
will increasingly rely on religious alternatives including Islam, the
"Free Tibet" movement, emergent pagan spirituality, and the Orthodox
church.[68] According to the Dalai Lama, this will
present challenges to the state as a political actor because religious conflict
stems from a state's inability to create "interreligious harmony" at
the institutional level.[69]
We have always faced both the benefits
and the increased risks associated with new technological development, but it
is not well understood that the speed of advancement has increased in recent
years. There is evidence that
evolution is actually the process of time speeding up; technological progress,
the newest means of evolution, grows exponentially.[70] Moore's Law, the principle that the speed of
microprocessors can double at half the price every two years, is actually an
example of the larger phenomenon of technological growth. Inventor Ray Kurzweil demonstrates that the
same pattern of exponential growth predicted by Moore's Law fits the entire
history of computation and scientific development.[71] Radio, television, and the Internet all
spread more quickly into American homes than their predecessors.[72]
Social
Consequences of Current Technology
The technological advancements of the
information age have already had dramatic effects. There has been a vast increase in the amount of ideas we are each
exposed to and any one of the thousands of images we see every day can have
major consequences. For example, a
videotape of the Rodney King beating can cause riots in a dozen cities.[73] Television has most-often, however,
encouraged spending more time at home and less civic engagement. According to Putnam, it is the source of
much of the current apathy.[74]
The Internet holds the potential to
revitalize social institutions because social capital is built on networks,
Putnam says, but it promotes a distinct kind of networking that does not fit
the old model. "The Internet,"
according to Fukuyama, "represents a technology with the potential to take
voluntary social bonds to new and undreamed-of heights."[75] The world of the Internet is quite distinct,
according to cultural observer Douglass Rushkoff: "Word of mouth and
personal experience mean everything," replacing authoritative sources.[76]
The Internet has and will continue to
fundamentally alter politics. Though
many see the Internet as a bastion of libertarianism, Larry Lessig believes
commercial and governmental powers have decided their interests lie in
stabilization. "It is evolving in a very particular direction: from an
unregulable space to one that is highly regulable," he says.[77] The Internet world also implies the need to
present a perspective in governance that is not geographically based. Without competition among potential sets of
rules for online interaction, Lessig says, self-interested code writing will
simply control the order of the day.[78] In the web-based society, according to the
World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, standards-setting bodies and
cooperative arrangements between business and non-profit groups will become
increasingly important. The only type
of arrangement that works in such a dynamic system with multiple players and
little central control is cooperation and consensus building.[79]
These debates are important because
simple rules about technological infrastructure can have major societal
effects. For instance, commercial use
of the Internet's predecessor was not allowed for fifteen years; after the
decision to open it to commercial traffic, the worldwide communications
revolution became inevitable.[80] According to Lessig, we are still building
the Internet's architecture, setting up the rules that will constrain social
and legal power online; this architecture is not built by regulations or norms
but by decisions written in computer code.[81] Lessig asks, "If code is law, who are
the lawmakers? What values are being
embedded in the code?"[82] If we fail to step up to the task of
political decisions over code-writing, Lessig says, "We will treat
code-based environmental disasters… as if they were produced by Gods, not by
Man. We will watch as important aspects
of privacy and free speech are erased by the emerging architecture of the panopticon."[83] The intellectual property debates over the
rise of peer-to-peer file-sharing systems such as Napster, for example, involve
important decisions about the future Internet architecture.
The Internet will also alter the ways
that laws are made. According to
California political observer Tracy Westen, online direct democracy is
inevitable and our only choice is to shape it; there are two revolutions, one
in technology and the other in frustration with institutions, that will come
together. Already, more money is spent
on California initiative campaigning than on legislative campaigning. Westen presents a possible scenario for
online direct democracy, saying that electronic qualification of initiatives,
online voting, and instant voting on important issues, will all pass easily
using the initiative process itself.[84]
Future
Technological Advancement
As Toffler recognized, we have entered a
period of innovation that rivals any past technological revolution. In Toffler's words, we are facing "The
Third Wave," a change just as important as the agricultural revolution and
the industrial revolution. The Second
Wave, according to Toffler, was characterized by standardization,
specialization, synchronization, concentration, maximization, and
centralization in all industrial societies, capitalist or socialist.[85] Society is undergoing a transformation from
these characteristics toward dynamic change, plurality, and
interdependence.
This technological advancement has far
reaching effects, Fukuyama warns: "We appear to be caught in an unpleasant
circumstance: going forward seems to promise ever-increasing levels of disorder
and social atomization, at the same time that our line of retreat has been cut
off."[86] Even technological proponents such as
Toffler believe technological growth must be met with public debate; "If
free markets and democracy are to survive the great and turbulent transitions
to come, politics must become anticipatory and preventative," he says.[87]
The recognition of the triumph of the
information age puts the recent developments in technological growth in
perspective. Kurzweil's "Law of
Accelerating Returns" shows that we will continue to find alternative
sources of computing power in time to continue doubling computing power
indefinitely. In fact, the rate of
exponential growth in computing power is even growing; computing will likely
reach the hardware capacity of the human brain by 2020.[88] Advances in molecular and quantum computing
are likely to mean that we will eventually reach a state of unlimited computing
power at microscopic size.[89] Kurzweil's predictions may seem far-fetched
but he previously correctly predicted the time when a computer would beat the
world chess champion, when the Internet would emerge, and the time frame for
speech recognition and portable computing.[90]
According to Lin Sten, "In the next
ten years… advances in molecular nanotechnology and artificial intelligence,
civilization's increasing digital orientation, and Homo sapiens' increasing
reliance on automated processing and distribution have several revolutionary
implications." For Sten, these
include dependency, human irrelevance, and an extreme technological divide.[91] It seems clear that, as Sten has put it,
"The rate of technological advance in automation, artificial intelligence,
robotics, computer processing, communications, and molenotechnology has become
so high that most people are unable to comprehend the implications of these
advances in time to make relevant social decisions about them."[92]
In April 2000, Sun Microsystems
co-founder Bill Joy wrote "Why The Future Doesn't Need Us," a Wired article that was compared to
Einstein's letter to Roosevelt acknowledging the possibility of the nuclear
bomb. It signaled that even
technologists are beginning to see some merit in anti-technology arguments such
as those presented in the Unabomber manifesto.
According to Joy, our general cultural acceptance of all technological
advancement as progress is concerning in the context of the twenty-first
century's self-replicating technologies: robotics, genetic engineering, and
nanotechnology.[93] Acknowledging that as a software engineer,
his "personal experience suggests we tend to overestimate our design
abilities," Joy says that with "enormous computing power combined
with… deep understanding in genetics, enormous transformative power is being
unleashed. These combinations open up
the opportunity to completely redesign the world, for better or for
worse."[94]
The current density of intelligence on
earth is highest in the human brain but, according to Kurzweil, it probably
will not stay that way: "[Brain intelligence density] is not very high---
nanotube circuitry, which has already been demonstrated, is potentially more
than a trillion times higher."[95] Computers are beginning to learn from the
human brain, using neural nets and self-organization.[96] According to Sten, technology will easily
evolve toward states of being with which we are unfamiliar. Nanotechnology will likely allow us to build
anything on the atomic level, including self-replicating robots. The technology would allow us to create any
item or species, approaching god-like powers that raise ethical issues beyond
comparison with current debates over cloning.[97]
Because it will require only information, its power will likely be available to
everyone.
The beginning of the debate over genetic
engineering is a sign of the coming technological battles. According to biologist Mae-Wan Ho,
"genetic engineering biotechnology is an unprecedented intimate alliance
between bad science and big business, which will spell the end of humanity as
we know it… the genetic-determinist mentality… takes hold of people's
consciousness, making them act unquestionably to shape the world."[98] Opposition to genetic engineering has grown
but many believe that biotechnology progress is inevitable. Ho claims that "the science war"
over genetics parallels the theoretical debate between absolutists and
relativists in academia but is far more important.[99] "The resurgence of eugenics,"
according to Ho, represents a new threat to minority groups along with eugenic
"solutions" to homosexuality and criminality.[100]
Genetic engineering, artificially
intelligent computers, and nanotechnology together bring us closer to both
divine creation and destruction. As
Bill Joy put it, "We are aggressively pursuing the promises of these new
technologies within the now-unchallenged system of global capitalism and its
manifold financial incentives and competitive pressures."[101] The history of the nuclear bomb shows that
once developed, these technologies will be inevitably deployed. The potential of nuclear technology is only
a small example of the future potential that will come from increased
technological progress.[102] Dangers will come from safeguard failures,
externalities, those that seek domination, revolution against domination, and
terrorism.[103]
With the increased computing power,
virtual reality and brain-linked networks may evolve to present experiences
indistinguishable from reality.[104] This technological development is not simply
tool creation, it is a process that allows transmission of information
regarding the technology itself to move from one generation to the next. Combined with computation, this may lead to
what some have called a merging of the species that created the technology with
the computational technology it created.[105] We are seeing the initial signs of a system
that may eventually allow full downloading of the mind along with the potential
for neural implants that will finally integrate man and machine.[106]
The technological advancements now being
investigated are reminiscent of science fiction. It is unlikely that all of the advances predicted by
technologists will come to fruition. It
is also naïve, however, to assume that only currently-existing technologies
should be considered as potential sources of change for long-term political
movements. Even limiting the discussion
to the Internet, genetic advances, and automation would show that technological
advancement has produced important social and political issues.
Because technology advances
exponentially, these issues only represent the beginning of a series of new
choices that society will encounter. No
one could predict all of the technological developments that will come to
dominate our daily lives in the new century, but the lessons of history and
modern life show that the technologies are likely to raise controversies. The technological changes that bring about
social change will also alter the politics of the information age. In parallel with growth in technology, there
is an acceleration of political pressure and the pace of political life.[107] Policy outcomes can no longer be easily
predicted and responsibility is transient.[108]
The
Political Implications of the Information Age
The
technological revolution has helped bring about a trend toward diversity that
may be part of a timeless pattern.
Evolution can be defined as "a movement toward richer and deeper
creative diversification and complexity," according to Theologian Jennifer
Cobb.[109] In business, further differentiation and
identification of smaller markets is the order of the day. Each worker is now usually a part of
multiple project teams and each business has several strategic alliances.[110] The political system has so far been able to
escape this trend but the Third Wave brings with it more varied types of
political movements.[111]
Technology will generally change how
democracy functions. Second Wave
politics made voting what Toffler calls a "reassurance ritual" that
was secondary to the hierarchical representative institutions. Third Wave politics, in contrast, includes
all kinds of organized interest groups and powerful individuals engaged in
everyday politics.[112] According to Morley Winograd and Dudley
Buffa, who help spearhead the Democratic Leadership Council, "The basic
functions of a political party--communication and loyalty-building--could have
been accomplished by one expert programmer and a few people who created the
material itself."[113] The information age also completely alters
coalition building, according to Toffler:
These same developments also sweep into
oblivion our notions about political coalitions, alliances, or united
fronts. In a Second Wave society a
political leader could glue together half a dozen major blocs, as Roosevelt did
in 1932, and expect the resulting coalition to remain locked in position for
many years. Today it is necessary to
plug in hundreds, even thousands, of tiny, short-lived special interest groups,
and the coalition itself will prove short-lived as well…. This demassification
of political life, [reflects] all the deep trends we have discussed in
technology, production, communications, and culture… On all sides, countless
new constituencies, fluidly organized, demand simultaneous attention to real
but narrow and unfamiliar needs.[114]
According to Toffler, even this chaotic
civilization still has three basic needs: community, structure, and meaning.[115] There is no hope of return to Victorian
values, according to Fukuyama, so we must seek out new kinds of values that fit
the information age.[116] Amish culture is an example of a subculture
that provides a model of resistance to the inevitability of technology. Though many believe that Amish culture
entails rejection of technology, in fact the Amish merely evaluate tools before
allowing them to enter their civilization.[117] For each tool, they ask whether it will
affect their communities and what kind of person its users will become. Their system is not designed to go backward
so much as simply to put brakes on advancement until seeing the implications.
This kind of process will be one proposal
in an ongoing debate between what Reason
Magazine editor Virginia Postrel terms "The Future and Its
Enemies." Planning for stability
by "reactionaries" or planning for control by
"technocrats," according to Postrel, will face off against the
hands-off approach envisioned by "dynamists."[118] The future political dividing line will be
between those who value "stability and control" and those who value
"evolution and learning," Postrel says: "These are not the comfortable
old cold War divisions of hawks and doves, egalitarians and individualists,
left and right. They contain elements
of those simpler classifications but they are much richer, encompassing… more
aspects of the emergent, complex future."[119]
Douglass Rushkoff presents an intriguing
theory for coming up with dynamist models to deal with modern life. "Looking at the world of children is
not looking backwards at our own past-it's looking ahead," he says,
"they are our evolutionary future."[120] For instance, the rave movement provides a
synthesis of the return to tribalism and the techno-culture of the future, a
"self-consciously technological" and globalist culture that aims
toward group consciousness.[121] Industrial music and goth culture literally
celebrate the past in the context of postmodern hedonism.[122] The goal of these behaviors seems to be
"co-evolution with technology," Rushkoff says.[123]
The emerging technocracy also has
far-reaching political consequences. As
Paulina Borsook has pointed out, high-tech "contains attitude, mind-set,
and philosophy" but it "has tended to fly both over and under the
radar of conventional politics."[124] Borsook says that "Technolibertarians
matter, much as the New Left and the counterculture of the '60s mattered and
continues [sic] to matter: both as extreme instantiation of a cultural shift
and as a social trend with the potential for long-lived consequences."[125]
In this context of technological
development, the redistributive politics that have defined the industrial age
may become less relevant. The political
alignment between social welfare and laissez-faire economics only came to
fruition after identification with either labor or management was high; it does
not continue in an era of flatter organizations.[126] Money is less maldistributed than the other
main sources of power, including knowledge; future power struggles are likely
to involve conflicts over information.[127]
New issues are quite slow to enter the
debate between the two-major parties.
The old political ideologies, according to Toffler, do not seem to have
developed clear perspectives on what he calls the major three issues of the
future: education, information technology, and freedom of expression. Peter Drucker's prediction that
"education will become the center of the knowledge society, and the school
is the key institution" is already visible in modern political priorities.[128] Kurzweil predicts that there will be
increasing concern about machine intelligence, technological dependence, and
privacy in the near future as a result of the preeminence of technology.[129]
As technology changes society, new groups
will emerge to demand the kinds of policy changes that fit with their
experiences. One in six American
workers is already either self-employed, a temporary worker, or an independent
contractor.[130] As Winograd and Buffa explain, this process
has already begun: "While Democrats and Republicans wait for a return of
the clarity that once marked the political divisions of the industrial age, a
growing majority of Americans wait impatiently for political leadership capable
of coming to grips with the age they have already entered."[131]
The people who work in information age
occupations will grow increasing impatient with the two-party system, Winograd
and Buffa predict:
As to the knowledge worker, the notion of
limiting the voters' choice to only two parties seems increasingly
anachronistic. And they know, or at
least they have begun to sense, that American politics will soon offer a
variety of candidates and campaigns as rich and diverse as the programming
options that are delivered daily on their cable TVs.[132]
The
Decline of Social Capital
Social capital is generally recognized as
a necessary precondition for communication, awareness of connectedness, and
achieving political goals.[133] From Thomas Jefferson to Alexis de
Tocqueville to John Dewey, many of the prominent influences on American
development focused on the need to build truly participatory organizations to
sustain a democracy.[134] Cooperation is an inherent human feature
and, in fact, is the best strategy in multi-player activities, as shown in the
prisoner's dilemma games in psychology.[135]
According to Robert Putnam, "the
character of work" has changed in a way that prevents interaction and
social capital.[136] We are also spending considerably less time
with neighbors and in informal associations.
The only rise in social capital comes from small self-help groups and
local shared-interest groups.[137] Fukuyama disputes Putnam's claim that group
memberships have decreased, believing that traditional groups have been
replaced by new kinds of associations and volunteer work.[138] Fukuyama generally agrees with Putnam,
however, regarding the decline of social capital. He shows that multiple social indicators of crime, family, and
trust all took a severe downturn in most industrial countries starting in the
mid-sixties.[139] Children born out of wedlock, divorce, and
family breakdown increased worldwide around this same time.[140]
Fukuyama presents four explanations for
what he calls "the great disruption" that he says are conventional
wisdom: poverty, greater wealth, the welfare state, or a broad cultural
shift. He then argues that the true
explanation is the change in labor brought about by the information age along
with the birth control pill.[141] The information age explanation, far from
being unique, is repeated throughout the literature and seems to be the best
explanation of the worldwide phenomenon.
We have thus already begun to experience the implications of the
technological changes discussed previously.
This breakdown of social capital has had
tremendous effects on the political system.
Toffler begins his latest book with this assertion: "America faces
a convergence of crises unmatched since its earliest days. Its family system is in crisis, but so is
its health system, its urban systems, its value system and above all, its
political system, which for all practical purposes has lost the confidence of
the people."[142] Lower voter turnout understates the true
decline in American political participation as evident in decreased knowledge
about and interest in political affairs.[143] According to Putnam, "Americans were
roughly half as likely to work for a political party or attend a political
rally or speech in the 1990s as in the 1970s."[144] Because of the aging population, according
to Putnam, Americans will vote less and join fewer groups in the twenty-first
century without a major boost in civic engagement.[145] African-Americans, in particular, are less
likely to be active politically because they are clustered in poverty-stricken
areas with little political organization.[146]
There number of political organizations
with paid staff has increased dramatically, but according to Putnam, "this
trend is evidence of the professionalization and commercialization of politics
in America" rather than increased interest.[147] The new kinds of political association like
Common Cause and the National Organization for Women are based in Washington
and professionally staffed with few local chapters.[148] Party hierarchy has declined in favor of
informal, self-organization such as community organizing and interest group
lobbying.
There has been a vast increase in the
number of worldwide non-governmental organizations and all types of formal
nonprofit groups, but they resemble modern bureaucracies in government and
business.[149] As Putnam says,
The changing nature of civic
participation in American communities over the last two decades has shifted the
balance in the larger society between the articulation of grievances and the
aggregation of coalitions to address those grievances. This disjunctive pattern of
decline--cooperation falling more rapidly than self-expression--may well have
encouraged the single-issue blare and declining civility of contemporary
political discourse.[150]
In 1959, just before the tumultuous
decade of the 1960s, political scientists noted that the ratio of activists to
the general population had been gradually growing over time and that the
younger generation had shared identities that made movement building possible.[151] As Putnam says, "These days
'movement-type' political actions are accepted as 'standard operating
procedure' across the political spectrum."[152] The social movements of the 1960s, however,
were replaced by professionally staffed interest groups that have large mailing
lists but little real association.[153] Protest does seem to be on the increase and
the potential for mass action is definitely evident. Campus politics, as observed by Naomi Klein, have broadened in
recent years from identity politics to corporate power, labor, and
globalization.[154] The anti-globalization movement has shown
its ability to mobilize at gatherings of political parties and world financial
institutions.
Trust, however, is also a key factor in
building a civil society or a movement culture. The role of norms and values changed considerably in competition
with individualism. There is now
widespread questioning of elected officials, scientists, priests, and teachers,
coinciding with decreased trust in institutions and one another.[155] Division of the electorate may help build
association if political group consciousness grows. Cooperation is often enhanced in the face of competition; groups
will form and work together in order to compete with others.[156] Cooperation also requires membership
boundaries and repetition of working relations.[157]
Gender
Roles and the Family
The family has also undergone upheaval as
a result of information age changes in gender roles. Nuclear families are not natural but socially constructed,
according to Fukuyama: "The family bond is relatively fragile, based on an
exchange of the woman's fertility for the man's resources… Today many people
have come to think of marriage as a kind of public celebration of a sexual and
emotional union."[158] This has had a substantial effect on social
change, Fukuyama says:
The most dramatic shifts in social norms
that constitute the Great Disruption concern those related to reproduction, the
family, and relations between the sexes.
The sexual revolution and the rise of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s
touched virtually everyone in the Western part of the developed world and
introduced massive changes not just in households but in offices, factories,
neighborhoods, voluntary associations, education, even the military.[159]
Leftists justifiably call Fukuyama's
conception of the women's movement "sexist" but his argument that
maintaining the family is a societal choice is actually evidence of the
inevitability of new kinds of families and further disruption of sex roles. According to Fukuyama, the sexual revolution
has primarily benefited men and hurt children.
As a result, there is the potential for several internal fights within
feminism, for example between difference feminists who believe the unique
characteristics of women should be enhanced and those in favor of
assimilation. It is possible that
women's movements could rise to challenge technological growth or present
alternative conceptions of growth that account for different kinds of values.
Far from an independent change, Fukuyama
shows that changes in gender roles were part of the broader shift to the
information age: "These value changes were stimulated by important
technological and economic developments related to the end of the industrial
era that alone can explain their timing."[160] New technological advances could have
different kinds of effects on sex roles.
For instance, biotechnology could potentially free women from pregnancy.[161] Technology could serve as either liberation
or further enslavement for women and gendered views will be an important part
of the ongoing discussion.
Fukuyama explores the possibility that a
broad cultural attitude shift may explain modern social disruptions. He believes that American values have
changed dramatically since the 1960s, though he concludes that it is an effect
rather than a cause of social change.
This attitude shift involves changes in norms and is signaled by the
rise of multiculturalism and a shift in popular culture. Since the primary effect is the
institutionalization of diversity, it has tremendous political
implications. As Pat Buchanan put it in
his 1992 Republican convention speech, "There is a religious war going on
in our country for the soul of America. It is a cultural war, as critical to
the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold War itself."[162]
An
Academic Movement
The attitude shift that Buchanan abhors
parallels the development of postmodern philosophy in academia, which attempts
to explain and justify the changing norms.
As Fukuyama explained,
Attempts to ground values in nature or in
God were doomed to be exposed as willful acts on the part of the creators of
those values. Nietzshe's aphorism,
"There are no facts, only interpretations," became the watchword for
later generations of relativists under the banner of deconstruction and
postmodernism.[163]
In a variety of disciplines, scholars
have advanced the concept of "postmodernity" has an attempt to
explain the current socio-cultural condition.
There is currently a struggle between
scientists and other disciplines such as cultural studies and sociology over
the enlightenment heritage and the idea of progress.[164] Postmodernism is seen as a response to
modernity, the age of reason grounded in the Enlightenment. Stephen Toulman identified four movements of
the modern era: from the oral to written, the particular to universal, the
local to general, and the timely to timeless.
Reason was to be purified by decontectualization in order to develop
consensus for universal claims.
Postmodernity is defined by the acceptance of pluralism, variety, and
ambivalence; it has led to a social condition based on the characteristics
modernity tried to eliminate.
Multi-racial western societies and feminist movements have cast doubt on
any attempt at consensus. There is a
sense that metanarratives have been lost in the context of what Jean-Francois
Lyotard calls a "radically pluralistic culture."[165]
Even
those who are concerned by this phenomenon view it as an important social
development. Former Vice President
Spiro Agnew noticed the trend as early as 1970:
Live is visceral rather than intellectual
and the most visceral are those who characterize themselves as
intellectuals. Truth is to them
revealed rather than logically proved and the principle infatuations of today
revolve around the social sciences, those subjects that can accommodate any
opinion… A spirit of national masochism prevails encouraged by an effete core
of impudent snobs.[166]
Just as the transformation from
agriculture to industrialization introduced new academic disciplines including
sociology,[167] the
current transition is creating new subjects and increasing inter-disciplinary
studies. At the same time, quantum
mechanics and relativity within science point toward the kind of postmodernism
evident in many of the social sciences.[168] As for philosophy, postmodernists have
reduced Plato’s kings to self-reifying reflections of their place in the world.
Fukuyama connects the academic trends
toward postmodernism with the "psychologization of contemporary life"
and the cultural relativism of Franz Boas and Margaret Mead.[169] In its modern conception, cultural
relativism has morphed into the kind of postmodernism advanced by Richard
Rorty. Rorty says the modernists tried
to create moral order for a "supercommunity" that one was required to
identify with. For Rorty, the only
possible moral rules are those that overlap with those of members of a
community we identify with for social and political purposes. We can rely on historical anecdote, the
shared stories that give us status as social beings in a community, and abandon
what he calls the ‘"metanarrative sideshow." [170] This view is roughly consistent with the
communitarian school of analytic philosophy, though it does not claim to be postmodern.
Even science has not escaped the
modernity debate. Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
set off a war in the scientific community; he argued that science "often
suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its
basic commitments…. What was once revolutionary itself settles down to become
the new orthodoxy."[171] The nuclear age of unparalleled power and
risk was ushered in by a new dominant scientific notion to replace the
enlightenment’s Newtonian physics; Einstein's theory of relativity has shown
that processes, not particles, are the basic unit of the universe. Postmodernity is signaled within science by
the subjectification of rational discovery, exemplified by the
"uncertainty principle" which shows that observation changes the
nature of what is observed.[172] "Post-normal science," according
to Ziauddin Sardar, "becomes a dialogue among all the stakeholders in a
problem, from scientists themselves to social scientists, journalists,
activists, and housewives, regardless of their formal qualifications."[173]
Changing
Norms
The effects of Postmodernism extend into
the broader society primarily as a change in norms. Politics can seek to shape cultural norms but cultural changes
are too strong to shift through state action, Fukuyama says; some norms are
spontaneously, rather than hierarchically, generated.[174] The increase in the value of diversity is
postmodernism's main contribution, according to Fukuyama: "Belief in the
relativity of values is today imbibed in every schoolchild and has taken deep
roots in American society. . . . Instead of being asked to tolerate diversity,
we are today enjoined to celebrate it."
In The
Postmodern Condition, Lyotard describes what he calls "the condition
of knowledge in the developed world."
Postmodernism requires a "war on totality," he concludes, to
be replaced by an "activation of differences" to bear "witness
to the unrepresented."[175] The status of knowledge has changed in a
hyperreal media world that has confused image and reality, he says, for images
have gained preeminence in the "society of the spectacle."[176] According to Lyotard, advanced advertising,
the development of the culture industry, and the preeminence of commodity
fetishism in modern capitalism have altered our understanding of how societal
values are produced.
For Lyotard, the only possible responses
to the postmodern society are subversion from within the libidinal economy or
"abstract testimony to difference in the postmodern world."[177] No other goal is necessary; these approaches
are justified in and of themselves as political acts. We can reflect on the "horizon of multiplicity,"
according to Lyotard, instead of the "social totality" that we used to
rely on.[178] In trying to construct a politics of ideas
and opinions with a rule of divergence, Lyotard says all would belong to many
minority groups and there would be no prevailing majorities. This style of relativism, according to Agnes
Heller, "has succeeded so completely that it is now in a position to be
able to entrench itself."[179]
Identity
Politics
Multiculturalism is the modern
incarnation of such a consensus.
According to David Hollinger, there has been "a transition from
species-centered to ethnos-centered discourse in the history of the United
States since World War II."[180] Hollinger believes that this signifies a
"transformation of American intellectual life by the ethnic and religious
diversification of its demographic base."[181] The dominant current attitude among blacks
in American society seems to be "plural nationalism," or the
dedication to black-led decision-making processes and new structures along with
the refusal to separate from the U.S.[182] Jesse Jackson's campaign coordinator
recognized that "nationalism is the most effective mobilizer of black people."[183]
Multiculturalism has created three sets
of demands on the American state, according to Hollinger: businesses have more
interests abroad, the U.S. has become the "site for transnational
affiliations," and nativists have demanded homogeneity of culture.[184] Hollinger proposes
"cosmopolitanism" as a replacement for the pluralism of modern
society: "Cosmopolitanism promotes multiple identities, emphasizes the
dynamic and changing character of many groups and is responsive to the
potential for creating new cultural combinations."[185] In either formulation, multiculturalism or
cosmopolitanism, it seems clear that America faces permanent diversification.
Individual identity also faces a turning
point in postmodernity. In social
patterns, according to Lyotard, everyone is at the intersection of multiple
memberships and there is an absence of unity in one’s different positions in
what he calls "language games."
Lyotard says that one decides what should be and what has been in the
current moment, creating ideas. This
kind of perspective has had its affects on the broader society as well,
according to Virginia Postrel: "People do not crave 'settled identity' but
instead tend to seek novelty: we marry outside our ethnic groups; adopt foreign
foods and fashions; invent new words, music, and visual art forms; develop new
religious practices and beliefs."[186]
Rorty says that moral dilemmas are caused
by each person's position at the intersection of memberships in communities
with different views. The self,
according to Michael Walzer, is divided by allegiance to different peoples,
religions, and ideas; it matches the "complexity of the social world"
and our conceptions of that world are "dependent on internal
reflection."[187] Thus, we "internalize our own
dissent" not to create a new hegemonic ideology but for "pluralistic
freedom."[188]
Popular
Culture
The postmodernist in art emphasizes
plurality, fragmentation, and allegory.
Popular culture reflects this postmodern shift. It is now filled with non-linear stories,
including Pulp Fiction and the
multiple endings to Wayne's World.[189] The proliferation of irony in popular
culture, from South Park to The Simpsons, presents a way to respond
to homogenizing culture through co-option with parody.[190] For Lyotard, the distance between the lexis,
the mode of presentation, and the logos, the content of the presentation, is
said to perpetuate violence. The
priority in the postmodern condition is on the presentation; it becomes the
content. In this mode, politics can be
achieved through art, literature, and storytelling, at least as much as
institutional involvement. Bey believes we should strive for "poetic
terrorism" including private subversions of dominance, lewd manifestations
of morality, and powerful diversions.[191]
Comparing the implications of
postmodernism to the antiwar movement and the women's movement, Paulina Borsook
notes that "[Andy Warhol's] commodification of pop culture presaged much
of what art and advertising and cultural sensibility would come to be about through
the end of the millennium."[192] According to Rushkoff, the rise in alien
imagery and designer drugs is a response to the chaos of postmodern life.[193] The mosh pit, he says, is an interesting
attempt to reflect chaos in a social setting.[194]
Rushkoff says that the generation called
"X" represented the first expression of discontinuity and lack of
overarching theme.[195] The postmodernist movements occurred
primarily in youth culture, according to Agnes Heller: "Three consecutive
generations have appeared since the Second World War: the existentialist
generation, the alienation generation and the postmodern generation…. Each wave
continues the pluralization of the cultural universe."[196] The transition to a new generation of
leaders will thus likely bring postmodern ideas to the forefront of American
society, even though they will not be referred to as postmodern.
Emotional understandings of human
differences and social issues have come to prominence. The modern era, the Dalai Lama says, is a
"state of permanent distress" based on "narrowness of
vision."[197] The problems of the modern world are
primarily based on what he calls "emotional and psychological
sufferings;" our primary political need turns out to be self-expression.[198] Scientific advances show that emotion, not rationality,
is the key factor in driving behavior.[199] For postmodernists, then, participation in
peace and ecology movements can be appreciated because "the personal is
political." The recent World Trade
Organization protests in Seattle included dancing and revelry in the streets,
various costumes, and radical coalitions; it could be a signal of postmodern
politics to come. One policeman at a
recent mass action radioed his impression: "This is not a protest. Repeat. This is not a protest. This is some kind of artistic
expression."[200]
The
Political Effects of Postmodernity
Postmodernism has been a broad cultural
phenomenon but it has not ignored politics.
Many academics believe that the state of "incredulity towards
metanarratives," as Lyotard described it, has become the most important
challenge to politics and social theory.[201] Postmodernism's choice seems to be between
the impossibility of rational politics and the democratic affirmation of
differences. Though some have accused
postmodernism of promoting political inactivity, indifference would not be an
appropriate response to the postmodern world; apathy denies ones position in a
narrative and fails to accomplish the task of multiplying and refining
perspectives."[202]
For postmodernists, politics is not a
matter of science; one should admit the subjectivity of one's opinions and
feelings. The sterile debate of the
past has frozen politics, constraining its forms. It is no wonder, Lyotard says, that some political observers see
a non-conformist movement as apolitical.
Fukuyama sees the movement as profoundly dangerous: "When this
relativism extends to the political values on which the regime itself is based,
then liberalism begins to undermine itself."[203] The modernity debate is, thus, inherently a
political one. Fukuyama's analysis of
the new cultural attitudes is beyond the scope of this study. In contrast to socialism and other
ideologies that might be debated, postmodernity is a fact of our world. It has altered the rules of the game for
science and politics.
Postmodernism's message to policymakers
is simply that the problem now facing them is information overload, a change
that will increase the importance of interpretation. Within postmodernity, political movements as diverse as
alternative medicine and the sexual revolution have flourished.[204] The postmodern position comes to full
fruition in a challenge to modern modes of being, nation-states, and
modernity’s central theme, rationally realized progress. For postmodernists, then, arguments for attainment
of objectives through the nation-state become less important than political
action overall.
Postmodernism changes the focus from
institutions to discourse, performance, and direct political acts. Local political actions, such as an
anti-roads protest, may be seen as an appropriate approach even if the actions
have no chance of achieving policy goals.
Postmodernism both creates and argues for a kind of chaotic
politics. We do not need to rely on
binary distinctions, according to Lyotard, because the undecidability is merely
a consequence of different models for events.
Although not generally considered a
postmodernist, Toffler contends that the left-right paradigm and
liberal-conservative dichotomy do not apply after the demassification of lifestyles
and values. There is also, according to
Toffler, a shift of power away from formal politics towards Internet-linked
movements and new media.[205] Toffler calls on institutions to
"acknowledge diversity and change institutions accordingly." In an astonishing reflection of the
postmodern attitude, Toffler calls for "new methods whose purpose is to
reveal differences rather than to paper them over with forces or fake
majorities based on exclusionary voting."
[206] He explains his purpose:
In place of a highly stratified society
in which a few major blocs ally themselves to form a majority, we have a
configurative society--one in which thousands of minorities, many of them
temporary, swirl and form highly novel, transient patterns, seldom coalescing
into a consensus on major issues.[207]
In this context, the concepts of left and
right have difficulty sustaining themselves.
According to Fukuyama, feminist movements, gay rights movements, and the
human potential and self-esteem movements all have succeeded in changing social
rules and norms. Both the left and the
right have pursued basic trends toward limitless liberation. The right has focused on money while the
left has focused on lifestyles.[208] Tolerance ranks as the highest social virtue
in contemporary society; multiculturalism and libertarian economics have
convinced the majority that, as Fukuyama put it, "There is no way of
judging whether one set of moral rules is better or worse than any other."[209]
According to Lyotard, the dominant
political notions privilege philosophers as advisors and intellectuals,
assuming that theory is needed to advance politics. Postmodernism will not "attribute power to a model that must
be respected."[210] For postmodernists, then, knowledge and
power have become "two sides of the same question" because power
relations create truth. In the computer
age of information distribution, Lyotard says, the "question of knowledge
is one of government." Technology
has come to affect this truth creation exercise, he says: the "normativity
of laws has been replaced by the performativity of procedures."[211] This fits with the observation that
governments are now more often composed of minorities of the electorate that
may not be able to speak legitimately for the whole nation.
The primary political influence of
postmodernism, then, will be to redefine the idea of representation. John Pocock has said that the postmodern
world requires finding ways to express identity and associate with one another
using a voice that has a real role in constructing the world.[212] Judith Squires has even called
representation in the political system ‘"the new justice."[213] Even when postmodernists do argue for
institutional action, then, it is often to give voices expression and not for
policy action. In this view, structures
function as a way of working through plural, conflicting natures. The struggle is merely for a platform from
which to contest dominant views and express variety.
The trend toward smaller groups and new
representatives is a key to the postmodern condition. As Fukuyama says,
People are picking and choosing their
values on an individual basis, in ways that link them with smaller communities
of like-minded folk. The shift to
smaller-radius groups is mirrored politically in the almost universal rise of
interest groups at the expense of broad-based political parties.[214]
Toffler argues that we must not stifle
this dissent. "We need new
approaches designed for a democracy of minorities," he says, specifically
calling for cumulative voting, rank order preferences, and "temporary
modular parties that service changing configurations of minorities."[215]
The
rise of globalization, the information age, and postmodernity not only reveal
the potential for deep social upheaval in our time, they signal a general trend
toward multiplicity that is destabilizing for the two-party system. The trends are quite significant
developments individually and each shows the problematic nature of current
politics in the context of social change.
Together, they present a picture of the almost insurmountable odds for
the status quo in the modern era. As
Toffler has put it,
It is impossible to be simultaneously
blasted by a revolution in technology, a revolution in family life, a
revolution in sexual roles, and a worldwide revolution in communications
without also facing--sooner or later--a potentially explosive political
revolution. All the political parties
of the industrial world… are obsolete and about to be transformed.[216]
While acknowledging the difficulty of
mass political change, we must also note the inevitability of some kind of
political alteration in the face of these trends.
[1] Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 391.
[2] John Dewey quoted in Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of
American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 378.
[3] Putnam, 381.
[4] Ibid., 368.
[5] Alvin Toffler
and Heidi Toffler, Creating a New
Civilization: The Politics of the Third Wave (Atlanta: Turner Publishing,
1995), 19.
[6] Newt Gingrich, foreword to Creating a New
Civilization: The Politics of the Third Wave,
by Alvin Toffler and Heidi Toffler (Atlanta: Turner Publishing, 1995), 16.
[7] Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (New
York: Anchor Books, 2000), xvi.
[8] Lawrence Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (New York: Basic Books, 1999),
226.
[9] Friedman, 57.
[10] Ibid., 13.
[11] Ibid., 357.
[12] Arthur A.
Ekirch, Progressivism in America: A Study
of the Era from Theodore Roosevelt to Woodrow Wilson (New York: New
Viewpoints, 1974), 7.
[13] Friedman, 103.
[14] Ibid., 106.
[15] Ibid., 110.
[16] Ibid., 355.
[17] Paulina Borsook, Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp through the Terribly Libertarian Culture
of High Tech (London: Little, Brown and Company, 2000), 263.
[18] Friedman, 334.
[19] Alvin Toffler, Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the 21st
Century (New York: Bantam Books, 1990), 255.
[20] Francis Fukuyama, The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstruction of Social
Order (London: Profile Books, 1999), 252.
[21] Toffler, Powershift, 246.
[22] Friedman, xxi.
[23] Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshaping the World
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1996), 11.
[24] Friedman, 34.
[25] The Dalai Lama, Ethics for the New Millennium (New York: Riverhead Books, 1999),
28.
[26] Friedman, 114.
[27] Hakim Bey, Millennium (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 1996). Available:
<http://www.desk.nl/~suzan/picknick/millenium.html>. Accessed 1 March
2001.
[28] The Dalai Lama, 199.
[29] Friedman, 192.
[30] Ibid., 158.
[31] Ibid., 190.
[32] David A. Horowitz, Beyond Left & Right: Insurgency and the Establishment (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press), 19.
[33] Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. (New York: Vintage Books,
1955), 21.
[34] Ekirch, 11.
[35] The Dalai Lama, 168.
[36] Friedman, xix.
[37] Ibid., 7.
[38] Ibid., 76.
[39] Ibid., 436.
[40] Barber, 178.
[41] Friedman, 438.
[42] Barber, 211.
[43] Ibid., 37.
[44] Friedman, 300.
[45] Ibid., 202.
[46] Borsook, 155.
[47] Friedman, 206.
[48] Lin Sten, Souls, Slavery, and Survival in the
Malenotech Age (St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 1999), 79.
[49] Naomi Klein, No Logo (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000), 393.
[50] Friedman, 8.
[51] Ibid., 11.
[52] Ibid., 333.
[53] Barber, 110.
[54] Ibid., 17.
[55] Mae-Wan Ho, Genetic Engineering: Dream or Nightmare? 2d ed. (Dublin: Gateway,
1999), 14.
[56] Charles Derber, Corporation Nation: How Corporations are Taking Over Our Lives and What
We Can Do About It (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998), 27.
[57] Derber, 50.
[58] Ibid., 34.
[59] Barber, 60.
[60] Ibid., 72.
[61] Klein, 3.
[62] Barber, 77.
[63] Fukuyama, 278.
[64] Ibid., 152.
[65] Friedman, 474.
[66] Fukuyama, 273.
[67] Friedman, 421.
[68] Bey, Millennium.
[69] The Dalai Lama, 219.
[70] Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
(New York: Penguin Books, 1999), 14.
[71] Ibid., 22.
[72] Putnam, 217.
[73] Douglas Rushkoff, Children of Chaos: Surviving the End of the World as We Know It
(London: Flamingo, HarperCollins Publishers, 1997), 7.
[74] Putnam, 224.
[75] Fukuyama, 47.
[76] Rushkoff, 190.
[77] Lessig, 25.
[78] Ibid., 200.
[79] Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving the Web: The Past, Present and Future of the World Wide Web by
its Inventor (London: Orion Business Books, 1999), 111.
[80] Borsook, 230.
[81] Lessig, 6.
[82] Ibid., 207.
[83] Ibid., 233.
[84] Tracy Westen, "A Republic or a
Democracy: Legislatures in the Electronic Future," Panel discussion at a
conference entitled "Envisioning California: E-democracy, Education and
Initiatives: The Future of the California Republic," State Capitol, Sacramento, 22 September 2000.
[85] Alvin Toffler,
The Third Wave (New York: William
Morrow and Company, 1980), 76.
[86] Fukuyama, 137.
[87] Toffler and Toffler, 77.
[88] Kurzweil, 106.
[89] Ibid., 112.
[90] Ibid., 170.
[91] Sten, xxii.
[92] Ibid., 226.
[93] Bill Joy, "Why the Future Doesn't
Need Us," Wired, April 2000.
Available: <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html>. Accessed
17 April 2001.
[94] Joy.
[95] Kurzweil, 259.
[96] Ibid., 72.
[97] Ibid., 137.
[98] Ho, 1.
[99] Ibid., 39.
[100] Ho, 24.
[101] Joy.
[102] Kurzweil, 256.
[103] Sten, 219.
[104] Kurzweil, 145.
[105] Ibid., 255.
[106] Kurzweil, 124.
[107] Toffler, The Third Wave, 424.
[108] Ibid., 411.
[109] Jennifer Cobb, Cybergrace: The Search for God in the Digital World (New York:
Crown Publishers, 1998), 39.
[110] Toffler and Toffler, 43.
[111] Ibid., 84.
[112] Toffler, The Third Wave, 92.
[113] Morley Winograd and Dudley Buffa, Taking Control: Politics in the Information
Age (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996), 246.
[114] Toffler, The Third Wave, 425.
[115] Ibid., 383.
[116] Fukuyama, 276.
[117] Howard Rheingold, "Look Who's
Talking," Wired, January 1999.
Available: <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.01/amish.html>. Accessed
17 April 2001.
[118] Virginia Postrel, The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict over Creativity,
Enterprise, and Progress (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), 7.
[119] Postrel, xvi.
[120] Rushkoff, 2.
[121] Ibid., 37.
[122] Ibid., 71.
[123] Ibid., 141.
[124] Borsook, 3.
[125] Ibid., 27.
[126] Winograd and Buffa, 31.
[127] Toffler, Powershift, 20.
[128] Winograd and Buffa, 201.
[129] Kurzweil, 206.
[130] Postrel, 35.
[131] Winograd and Buffa, 7.
[132] Ibid., 245.
[133] Putnam, 288.
[134] Ibid., 337.
[135] Fukuyama, 170.
[136] Putnam, 86.
[137] Ibid., 148.
[138] Fukuyama, 53.
[139] Ibid., 27.
[140] Ibid., 46.
[141] Ibid., 64.
[142] Toffler and Toffler, 7.
[143] Putnam, 36.
[144] Ibid., 41.
[145] Ibid., 256.
[146] Ibid., 343.
[147] Ibid., 39.
[148] Ibid., 51.
[149] Fukuyama, 58.
[150] Putnam, 46.
[151] Ibid., 17.
[152] Ibid., 165.
[153] Ibid., 155.
[154] Klein, xix.
[155] Fukuyama, 48.
[156] Ibid., 174.
[157] Ibid., 214.
[158] Ibid., 101.
[159] Ibid., 36.
[160] Ibid., 92.
[161] Ibid., 129.
[162] Pat Buchanan, "Republican
Convention Speech, " Houston, 17 August 1992. Available:
<http://crabgrasschronicles.tripod.com/buchanan92.htm>. Accessed 17 April
2001.
[163] Fukuyama, 73.
[164] Ziauddin
Sardar, Thomas Kuhn and the Science Wars,
Postmodern Encounters (New York: Totem Books, 2000), 4.
[165] Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on
Knowledge (Irvine, CA: The Critical Theory Institute, 1979). Available:
<http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/postmodernism/lyotard_text.htm>.
Accessed 17 April 2001.
[166] Spiro Agnew, "Address on the
Vietnam War Protests, " Houston, 12 May 12 1970. Available:
<http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/ra_archive/speech_4.ram>.
Accessed 17 April 2001.
[167] Fukuyama, 9.
[168] Sardar,
7.
[169] Fukuyama, 74.
[170] Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1989), 105-154.
[171] Thomas Kuhn quoted in Ziauddin Sardar, Thomas
Kuhn and the Science Wars, Postmodern Encounters (New York: Totem Books,
2000), 27.
[172] Rushkoff, 20.
[173] Sardar,
64.
[174] Fukuyama, 153.
[175] Lyotard.
[176] Ibid.
[177] Ibid.
[178] Ibid.
[179] Agnes Heller, "Existentialism,
Alienation, Postmodernism: Cultural Movements as Vehicles of Change in the
Patterns of Everyday Life," in Postmodern
Conditions, ed. Andrew Milner, Philip Thomson, and Chris Worth (New York:
Berg Publishers, 1990), 8.
[180] David A. Hollinger, Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism (New York: BasicBooks,
1995), 9.
[181] Ibid., x.
[182] Warren N. Holmes, The National Black Independent Political Party: Political Insurgency or
Ideological Convergence? Studies in African American History and Culture,
ed. Graham Russell Hodges (New York: Garland Publishing, 1999), 74.
[183] Holmes, 33.
[184] Ibid., 15.
[185] Ibid., 4.
[186] Postrel, 127.
[187] Walzer.
[188] Ibid.
[189] Rushkoff, 66.
[190] Ibid., 226.
[191] Hakim Bey, The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, and Poetic
Terrorism (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 1991).
[192] Borsook, 99.
[193] Rushkoff, 144.
[194] Ibid., 155.
[195] Ibid., 100.
[196] Heller, 4.
[197] The Dalai Lama, 110.
[198] Ibid., 16.
[199] Fukuyama, 182.
[200] Klein, 311.
[201] Andrew Milner, Philip Thomson, and Chris
Worth, Postmodern Conditions (New
York: Berg Publishers, 1990), x.
[202] Lyotard.
[203] Fukuyama, 282.
[204] Heller, 8.
[205] Toffler and Toffler, 8.
[206] Ibid., 95.
[207] Ibid., 92.
[208] Fukuyama, 13.
[209] Ibid., 16.
[210] Lyotard.
[211] Ibid.
[212] Barber, 274.
[213] Lyotard.
[214] Fukuyama, 89.
[215] Toffler, The Third Wave, 438.
[216] Ibid., 408.