EMFA: T4E2 - Dwelling in a Digital World - Sparkman

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Theme: Private and Public Roles
Author: Randy Sparkman
E-mail: rsparkman@att.net


[Host Note:  Randy noted that "this may be a bit long and off 
topic," but I think it does a great job illustrating the very 
personal nature of the online experience.  One of the 
challenges I see is whether people will organize new "publics" 
from the base of this very individualistic medium since existing 
"publics" like governments seem to be less focused on the notion 
of "public goods" related the Internet.]




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ESSAY SUBMITTED TO E-Mail for All - - - EMFA-EVENT 

Copyright 1998 Randy P. Sparkman. All Rights Reserved.

WHEN I WAS a kid, I wanted to be a scientist. The problem was, except for
those depicted in my textbooks and in books borrowed from the library, I
had never seen one. Instead, in my imagination, I created a separate and
parallel universe for my white-coated heroes. There, unimpeded by the
demands and constraints of the physical world, they were free to seek out
pure thought, unfettered collaboration, and unlimited knowledge. Even
though I had no specific reason to think that I might break the pattern of
generations of working class, paycheck-to-paycheck existence, I assumed
that my noble world of science and thought would be a Jeffersonian "natural
aristocracy among men". In my mind, it would be a place where only those
with the best ideas would be heard and respected, and where those with the
best pedigree or the last, best deal would not necessarily move to the
front of the line.

As it tends to do, the real world did ultimately intervene on my pristine
vision. Now, thirty years later, I find that I am not a citizen of the land
of the scientific method. Instead, in my professional life, and in a small
but significant part of my private life, I dwell in a digital world. But
all is not lost. It turns out that my youthful, hopeful, abstract, and
detached view of a life in science is applicable to a life in Cyberspace.
And while that view may be so naïve as to border on Pollyanna-ism, it may
well be an antidote to the late twentieth-century mixture of cynical,
polarized, fearful, and utopian visions for our digital future.

I grew up during the Johnson and Nixon administrations, in a rural area
outside a manufacturing-dependent southern town of nine thousand. While I
certainly didn't live down the road from Beaver Cleaver, I was fortunate
enough to have a caring and supportive extended family, access to a solid
public school system, and a natural affinity for reading. I also acquired
the mixed blessing of the unquestioning trust of authority, institutions,
and the future inherent in the southern, white, journeyman generations of
middle-twentieth-century America.

As computers and networks began to find their way into more and more
businesses, I sneaked in with them. Now, employed in support of information
technology in a large, scientific, government Agency, I find myself
developing abstract ideas about human ideas and processes, working with
individuals and groups independent of time and space, publishing my ideas
in a medium with the potential to be read by millions, navigating with ease
through vast amounts of knowledge, and succeeding or failing by my own wits
- all within a digital meritocracy. Golly, I feel ten years old again.

In my private life, I also participate in a world separate from, but
reflective of, my life in physical space. There, too, I'm able to engage
individuals and groups with which I share common ground, whether that be a
political opinion, an enemy, an illness, an obsession with a screen star,
or a hankering for an Elvis lamp. In Cyberspace, I'm able to publish my own
ideas, and whether or not they end up in a vast, empty digital auditorium,
the cigar-filled office of a media mogul, or the home-office of a kindred
spirit is left to my own abilities and energies. I'm able to visit and
interact with the digital storefront of institutions, the marketplace, and
the entertainment business with relative anonymity and convenience. And
even though what I find there today is difficult, clunky, and primitive, it
is only a glimmer of what my daughter will find there in the new century.

For someone like me, the great advantage and attraction of Cyberspace is
simply a seat at the table. Regardless of my last name, my regional
origins, my ethnicity, or my physical attributes or abilities, if I can dig
up the resources to gain technological access, then all the current, and,
more importantly, the future, economic, social, and cultural (popular and
otherwise) attributes of the medium are available to me. This has been the
nature of computers and networks since IBM and Charlie Chaplin released the
PC. With limited resources, I was able to take hold of the technology and
pull myself over the fence between average and better than average. Believe
me, better than average really is better.

Journalists and social commentators who write about technology are burdened
by the necessity to be cynical and hip. Their need for sensation, Deep
Cultural Trends, evil lurking in the hearts of men, and, in some cases,
superiority, often blinds them to the simple utility of the tools they
analyze. Technology companies and the government each need to sell
something and, too often, over-sell the cultural and social impact at the
cost of identifying that same utility. The result is a dithering, polarized
view of technology as both savior and Satan, when, in reality, like it or
not, and for better and worse, digital technology is quietly insinuating
itself into the very fabric of our lives.

Even in today's homogenous America, for a southerner, the idea of place
remains resonate. Perhaps that is why, for me, the metaphor of the digital
realm as a "place" seems particularly relevant. In my working life, I have,
on occasion, had cause to visit Manhattan. Upon hearing about an impending
visit, almost immediately my local friends will make reference to "that den
of iniquity". Their mind's eye immediately goes to the most shrill and
convenient image of what, to them, must surely be a foreign and hostile
place. The same happens with Cyberspace. To those unfamiliar with the
on-line world, the first image is of a digital wasteland filled with
pedophiles and credit card thieves. While these types of miscreants
certainly exist in Manhattan - and on-line  it is a given that there is
much more to both places. To stretch the analogy a bit further, both places
encourage anonymity, offer dynamic, permanent, and varied communities, and
provide access to extraordinary quantities of cultural and entertainment
experiences. Visitors are free to carve out their own existence, social
circles, and accolades  and they're also free to waste their time in places
like the pre-Disney 42nd street.

My paternal grandfather was born at the turn of this century just a few
miles from where his great-grandfather homesteaded a dense, forbidding,
pine thicket on the bank of a creek literally named, "No Business". His was
an insular, isolated community where people fed themselves and their
families through hard physical labor. Was he happy? Sure he was - when he
could stop work long enough to think about it. Would I trade places with
him? No way. I'm lucky enough to have access to a far greater range of
culture, friends, health-care, jobs, and choices for how I spend my life.
And in the next century, my daughter will have even more. While my narrow
views about the benefits of Cyberspace might not play well with the
culturally-elite pundits who pontificate about the promise and the dangers
of technology, even they couldn't have predicted what kinds of
opportunities it would provide a naïve kid with a dime store chemistry set.


More about Randy Sparkman: 
http://home.worldnet.att.net/~rsparkman/html/background.html

Personal web space:
http://home.att.net/~rsparkman



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