roundtable: Umberto Eco and a new Internet question -- Fascism? (fwd)

roundtable: Umberto Eco and a new Internet question -- Fascism? (fwd)

Umberto Eco and a new Internet question -- Fascism? (fwd)

Vigdor Schreibman - FINS (fins@access.digex.net)
Mon, 12 Jun 1995 22:10:58 -0400 (EDT) 

Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 22:10:58 -0400 (EDT)
From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
To: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
Subject: Umberto Eco and a new Internet question -- Fascism? (fwd)
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950612221017.16713B-100000@access4.digex.net>


Forwarded by Vigdor Schreibman
<fins@access.digex.net>


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 16:51:43 CDT
From: Jack Kessler <kessler@well.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
Subject: Umberto Eco and a new Internet question -- Fascism?

----------------------------Original message----------------------------

Umberto Eco, writing in the current -- June 22 -- _New York Review of
Books_, in an essay entitled "Ur - Fascism":

        "Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common
        will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost
        their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only
        called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is
        only a theatrical fiction.

        "To have a good instance of qualitative populism we no longer
        need the Piazza Venezia in Rome of the Nuremberg Stadium. There
        is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the
        emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be
        presented and accepted as the Voice of the People."

This from an Italian intellectual who personally remembers Fascism from
his youth ("I elaborated with rhetorical skill on the subject 'Should
we die for the glory of Mussolini and the immortal destiny of Italy?'
My answer was positive. I was a smart boy.")

The Fascists of the 1930s used various then - new media to good effect
in their politics.  There is a strong conservative reaction abroad now
in both the US and in Europe, a reaction which already is making good
use of the now - new media of online networks and digital
communications. The rhetoric already has been bordering on the
hysterical in both places, and there is worry by thoughtful people in
both places that online "soundbyte" politics may not get beyond the
level of rhetorical hysteria anytime soon. I wonder how prescient Eco's
warning about "Internet populism", here, may turn out to have been?

Eco's essay makes for excellent if disturbing reading, particularly for
any systems person or librarian who will be helping the general public
to use all of this, and who still may cherish the illusion that the act
of communicating information somehow is value - free.


Jack Kessler

kessler@well.sf.ca.us

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