roundtable: FWDLISTNAMEHEREgt; Newt's Eye

roundtable: FWD> Newt's Eye

FWD> Newt's Eye

Rick Crawford (crawford@cs.ucdavis.edu)
Thu, 6 Apr 1995 16:52:35 -0700 

Date: Thu, 6 Apr 1995 16:52:35 -0700
From: crawford@cs.ucdavis.edu (Rick Crawford)
Message-Id: <9504062352.AA21311@ivy.cs.ucdavis.edu>
To: roundtable@cni.org
Subject: FWD> Newt's Eye


I particularly like Phil's examination of the ideology of inevitability.
Although he doesn't specifically mention the Knowledge Gap or the
*differential* benefits of technological "progress", these notions
are implicit in his conclusion:

   Only the naive or the scurrilous believe the Third Wave claim that
   "information is power."  Power is power, and information is
   particularly useful to those who are already powerful.


-rick


Rick Crawford
<crawford@cs.ucdavis.edu>
------

From: "Phil Bereano" <phil@uwtc.washington.edu>

The following Op Ed ran in the Seattle Times Sunday April 2, and is being
sent out to other Knight-Ritter papers.  If any recipient would like to 
try to place it in local media through your connections, I'd be 
appreciative.  Please have your newsperson contact me at:

   Philip L. Bereano
   Technical Communication
   University of Washington
   Box 352195
   Seattle Washington 98195-2195
   phone: 206-543-9037
   fax: 206-543-8858
   e-mail: phil@uwtc.washington.edu


Eye of a Newt, Tongue of a Toffler
Philip L. Bereano

"We are . . . in the process of creating a new civilization" Newt 
Gingrich writes in the forward to the book by Alvin Toffler, Creating 
a New Civilization: The Politics of the Third Wave, the latest example 
of the surprising symbiosis between the conservative politician and the 
liberal futurist.  In order to better understand the politics of one of 
the most powerful men in America, we need to explore Gingrich's long-
standing reliance on Toffler's work; how is such an unlikely brew 
stirred up?  By using a dialectical inquiry,  based on a realization 
that contradictory and opposing elements do exist simultaneously, 
feeding on each other, we can see why Gingrich relies on Toffler to get 
where he is going and where he wants to take the rest of us.

Toffler's Future Shock, published in 1970 and made into a video soon 
thereafter, influenced millions to think more self-consciously of "the 
future" and what it would mean for their lives.  The thesis of the book 
was that the future would be very different from the present, and unless 
people were adequately prepared for it they would be overwhelmed and 
lose out on the new goodies and the opportunities for power which would 
become available.  Ten years later, in the influential Third Wave, 
Toffler set out a grand scheme that Western civilization had successfully 
undergone social and economic evolution from a First Wave (agrarian) 
society into a Second Wave (industrial) one and is currently struggling 
to emerge into a third configuration in which knowledge is the supreme 
commodity and our lives are lived out in the new domain called cyberspace.  
Although Toffler and his sometime-collaborator/wife Heidi are considered 
liberals, the ideas in their influential works are indeed quite elitist 
and anti-democratic.  In reality, of course, while there will be only 
one actual future, there are many possible future scenarios.  The 
particular future which emerges is the result of choices made today.  
Experienced by all, the future is, in fact, created by only some.  By 
claiming that the process is inevitable, Toffler engenders passivity in 
his readers.  By denying that the actual future is shaped, he discourages 
citizen political and social activity.    Toffler naively believes the 
dominant values of the coming cyberage are liberal-international sharing 
and exchange rather than nationalism, greed and a will to domination. But 
by insisting that the primary cultural attributes we need are conformity 
and adaptability, Toffler makes us more willing to accept the choices 
that others, more powerful than ourselves, have made for us.  Use any 
metaphor you like - if your surfboard isn't in the curl of the Third Wave, 
if you're not on the train which is about to leave the station, if you 
don't get with the program - you are "history."

The film of "Future Shock", which I use in my class, presents a corpulent 
Orson Welles as the narrator, a bastion of upper-class stability among 
swirling activity and chaotic and arbitrary change.  In this way the 
essentially proto-fascist subtext of Toffler's work can be seen - 
someplace there is a Big Daddy who is stronger, more stable, and more 
knowledgeable than you and he will provide you refuge if you only will 
sublimate your personality within his vision.

And the elites pay Toffler very well for his exposition of this view, 
which bolsters their exercise of power - $30,000 for an after-dinner 
lecture is his current rate.

So the apparent paradox is easily deconstructed.  Newt Gingrich would 
be that male authority figure who would ride the Third Wave and tow the 
rest of us in his wake.  And if it is all inevitable then we would be 
foolish, anachronistic, masochistic - in other words, "losers" -  to 
oppose him.  According to the New York Times, Gingrich "says he wants 
to do nothing less than to save American civilization with a renewal 
of family values."  An emphasis on traditional values of the family has 
always been a mainstay of authoritarian politics, particularly of the 
right wing.  We should remember that Gingrich started his political 
career as a liberal but quickly began paddling to take advantage of the 
rightward riptide.  "He sees what will help him; whether he believes it 
or not, he uses it," his former minister is quoted as saying.  A former 
friend echoes, "whatever it takes for power, that's what he'll do."  
Toffler provides a veneer of intellectual respectability to this power 
lust.

Gingrich's appearances as a professorial intellectual do not always 
reveal the implications of his political programs.  For example, in a 
January speech entitled "From Virtuality to Reality," given in DC to 
an audience which the Washington Post noted was "all but a handful" 
comprised of "men in suits" who had paid $150 each, he flattered his 
audience by framing his talk with the questions "Are you ready for 
some big thinking?  Are you ready for some big change?"  The Speaker 
of the House of Representatives then invited his audience to join him 
in realizing five goals: transitioning into the Third Wave information 
age; seeing the world market as an opportunity in which they could win 
by being the best competitors; committing to replacing the welfare state 
with the "opportunity society"; reestablishing community "movements"; 
and - as the apotheosis - renewing American civilization.  In 
disarmingly simplistic fashion he said that as we stood on the cusp of 
the Third Wave, we had "five news" to deal with: new hope, new dialogue 
(in which people will have "access"), a new partnership in which we 
reach out to all, a new team (presumably the one in which he is the 
star player), and a new era.

These statements are vapid generalities, so bland that if they were not 
being made by someone with Gingrich's power we would ignore them and 
turn our attentions to more interesting pursuits.  Any politician could 
make the same statements and we might greet them with a yawn.

And indeed, Vice President Al Gore has made almost exactly the same 
statement Gingrich has, that "the Internet is for the poorest kid in 
America;" so what does it mean that both the "liberal" Democrat and the 
"conservative" Republican have such similar highly optimistic views 
about the ability of technologies to overcome social problems?  That 
both are willing to rely on technocratic approaches to transcend 
traditional politics?  That a liberal/conservative view of the world 
masks the similarities of supposed opposites (which are dialectically 
really mutually re-enforcing)?

We have to remember in our own history other authoritarian demagogues 
who espoused "populism" and technological innovation: Huey Long, for 
example, claimed to embody the will of the masses as he developed 
railroad bridges across the Mississippi and a modern hospital complex 
at LSU.

Newt Gingrich is, however, not going to be one of the people who will 
passively adapt to the changes Alvin Toffler purports to be able to 
see.  No, Newt has hired a "change management consultant" named Morris 
Shechtman who operates mainly in the shadows but has been candid about 
the fact that the future his clients will bring about is "a heavy-duty 
culture change" which will benefit only some people.  "Liberals are 
driven with the fantasy of a pain-free environment.  The only pain-free 
environment is death," he blithely announces.

As part of what the "inside the Beltway" crowd calls "Newt, Inc.," 
Gingrich has set up an organization called the Progress & Freedom 
Foundation, to push his Tofflerian "philosophy."  Its first assignment 
was to serve as a cover for his college course, modestly entitled 
"Renewing American Civilization" (thrown out of the Georgia State 
college system in 1993 and now housed at a school which until recently 
was but a junior college).  The goal of the course, which is televised, 
is to produce "200,000 committed citizen activists nationwide," Gingrich 
has claimed - an objective that sounds much more like a political 
organizing tactic than an academic pursuit.  Gingrich has invited 
contributors to his political organization, Gopac, to give money to the 
course through the Foundation.  Because this money is tax-deductible, 
all of us wind up supporting Newt's propaganda, but only the actual 
contributors get to "participate in the course development process," 
which means being able to provide taped materials, analyses, and topics 
to be included in the syllabus.  The course provides intellectual 
respectability to Gingrich's ideas, as does his association with 
Toffler.  But critics still question the arrangements.  "There is a 
growing trend of political foundations out there that are in essence a 
tax-exempt pocket where political contributors can support a candidate 
and at the same time get a tax write-off," according to Joshua Goldstein 
of the Center for Responsive Politics in DC.  A less-neutral source, the 
Democrat who narrowly lost to Gingrich in 1990, says "this is like all 
the other Gingrich scams.  He gets a small group of wealthy political 
supporters to underwrite whatever pet project he has at the time, and 
his desire is always to amass as much power and influence as possible."  
A formal complaint has recently been filed with the House Ethics 
Committee alleging that Gingrich pressured for free cable coverage for 
the course.

Thus the Progress & Freedom Foundation serves as a cover for Gingrich 
in at least two ways - it makes him look like a leader because he is 
thinking ahead and it helps loll the public by masking the unpleasant 
future realities.  The "American Civilization" Newt wants to "Renew" 
will thus be able to become the universal civilization, as Manifest 
Destiny is applied to cyberterritory.

The Foundation's January conference on "Democracy and Virtual America," 
was described by the Washington Post as "Predicted with Virtual 
Certainty: Gingrich & the Technoids Look into their Crystal Balls."  
Neatly bracketed by Toffler's Third Wave and Newt's Five News, right-
wing mystic Arianna Huffington (wife of the unsuccessful California 
Senate candidate) offered her views of the "Fourth Instinct;" she is 
a channeler who is apparently able to surf the Internet without the 
use of a computer.

Aside from providing a platform for speeches, the Foundation serves as 
a "think-tank to map out a vision of America's high-tech future."  By 
publishing "A Magna Carta for the Information Age," authored by Toffler 
and other info-celebrities, an intellectual framework has been provided 
for utilizing the Third Wave notion as a justification for dismantling 
governmental regulatory legislation and activity - as Second Wave 
anachronisms. The goal is to let the "knowledge age" flourish; it 
claims that knowledge will replace material resources as the basis 
for social power.  This document (apparently only available on the 
Internet - thus ensuring that the poor and other disadvantaged folks 
don't learn about it too rapidly) is an embarrassing pastiche of ideas, 
claims, and fantasies.  Some examples:

   o  "The central event of the 20th Century is the overthrow of 
       matter."   [So much for Reaganite materialism]

   o  "The big change, in other words, is the demassification of 
       actionable knowledge."

   o  "And as America continued to explore new frontiers - from the 
       Northwest   Territory to the Oklahoma land-rush - it 
       consistently returned to this  fundamental principle of 
       rights, reaffirming, time after time, that power  resides 
       with the people." [This is a conversation for white people only.]

   o  "Cyberspace is the latest American frontier.  As this and 
       other societies make ever deeper forays into it, the 
       proposition that ownership of this frontier resides first 
       with the people is central to achieving its true potential." 
       [The central transmission lines of the Internet are currently 
       in the process of being privatized; ownership - and the power 
       of control that goes with it - is being transferred from the 
       people and their representatives to private corporations];

   o  "Today we have, in effect, universal access to personal 
       computing - which no political coalition ever subsidized or 
       `planned'." [Even the most optimistic figures make it clear 
       that an overwhelming majority of Americans today have no real 
       access to cyberspace, whatsoever.]

   o  "Third Wave policies will help transform diversity from a 
       threat into an array of opportunities." [Cobb County Georgia, 
       the core of Newt Gingrich's Congressional District, has 
       adopted a resolution condemning homosexuality as incompatible 
       with the (apparently not very diverse) American way of life.]

Since knowledge is the basis of the new Third Wave society, and since 
cyberspace is the domain of knowledge, the whole purpose of the "Magna 
Carta" is to call for a sweeping deregulation of telecommunications 
activity, in the name of promoting "competition."  But it also calls 
for "much greater collaboration between the cable industry and phone 
companies", and urges "reducing barriers to entry  and innovation" 
(and also, presumably, reining in the anti-trust laws which stop these 
companies from combining their networks).  The US government envisioned 
by Gingrich and the Magna Cartarites would lay open cyberesources to 
the sort of plundering that the Robber Barons of the late 19th century 
demonstrated so effectively on our physical resources.

Hannah Arendt, the German-American philosopher, used the occasion of 
the release of the Pentagon Papers to explore the symbiosis which is 
capable of developing between unscrupulous politicians and amoral 
technocrats.  After identifying these two social actors (for example, 
Lyndon Johnson on the one hand, Robert MacNamara and his "whiz kids" 
on the other), Arendt describes politicians as living in a 
"de-factualized world" where they are able to operate with a world 
view which they have the power to impose on others, despite contrary 
facts.  These myths become so internalized by the politicians 
themselves that they amount to a grand self-deception, in which they 
believe their own lies (because they are "not lies").  The technocratic 
problem solvers, on the other hand, have access to the facts but not 
to reality because they accept the reality that is defined for them by 
the politician.  They calculate but do not judge, and display 
overwhelming self-confidence in the calculability of reality.  Thus, 
the politician's arrogance of power is coupled with the technocrat's 
arrogance of mind, in mutual reinforcement.  Thus, Gingrich and Toffler.  

In my view, most Americans are troubled in some fashion about the 
increasing pace of technological change around them and what they 
perceive of as increasing social disorganization.  And those that 
oftentimes seem the least disoriented by the changes - for example the 
young who have known no other reality - are usually the ones who 
display very little sense of community anyway.  As personal and social 
alienation increases, we would do well to heed the warning of 
Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor: most people will trade away freedom 
for security.  Gingrich's "Magna Carta" may claim that "Third Wave 
policies work to spread power - to empower those closest to the 
decision," but the increasing political reality is that while 
cybertechnologies may enable citizens to learn about "the decision" 
very rapidly as information about it is disseminated out, with only 
elites like Gingrich shaping "the future," none of the rest of us is 
likely to be very close to the decision when it comes to providing 
input.  

Only the naive or the scurrilous believe the Third Wave claim that 
"information is power."  Power is power, and information is 
particularly useful to those who are already powerful.

   Philip L. Bereano is professor of Technical Communication in the 
   College of Engineering of the University of Washington.  He is a 
   Seattle community activist specializing in technology-public 
   policy issues.  This is one of an occasional series of articles 
   on technology policy.

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