Dorris Lessing is the latest of a growing list of notable people who have spoken out against the internet, claiming in short that it makes us stupid. Another prominent example is the author Andrew Keen who argues first that user generated content (along with copyright infringement and the like) is undermining the business models that enable the production of quality content - content that is vetted by professionals. On the other side you have people like Lawrence Lessig who argues in defence of the cult of the amateur and the democratisation of content production. It’s interesting that the internet has produced such divergent interpretations of its contribution. Either it will liberate us from the elite culture makers, or it will doom us to a swill of endless mediocrity where we can’t tell fact from fiction. Either it will be the birth of a new democratic consciousness, or the end of consciousness itself. I’m not going to take a side in this particular debate. It is an old debate as I will point out in greater detail below. However, there is a manner in which the internet may provide for a genuine raising of consciousness, one which is continually overlooked by the pundits. It’s nature is not what you’d expect - and it certainly doesn’t rely on a wholesome belief in the goodness of the average human being.

At the heart of the debate between those like Keen and Lessig is the concept of authority. What Keen fears more than anything is that our ability to recognise an authoritative voice will be lost. But what is ‘authority’? How is an authoritative voice recognised in any situation, let alone one muddied by the proliferation of voices occurring in a web 2.0 world? This isn’t just about the categorisation of social institutions that divides between the authoritative and the non-authoritative. Once we had somehow established which were the authoritative voices - the ones which consistently provided insight into the facts of the world - how might we then validate that authority for ourselves? If you follow this line of thought long enough, you begin to hit deep philosophical and metaphysical issues about the nature of truth and our access to it. The debate between Keen and Lessig is a surface parody of what are ultimately deep and fundamental questions. Keen attacks the truthiness (to use Colbert’s delightful term) of wikipedia, while Lessig points to the flaws of Fox News. But they aren’t the first to wonder in dismay at the variety of the sources of information, or question their credibility.

A fantastic example which demonstrates this is Chaucer’s poem ‘The House of Fame’. It was written in the late 14th century, over six hundred years ago, and yet captures all the nuances of the debate - but with greater subtlety than any contemporary commentator. The poem describes a dream had by the poet where a great eagle comes to show him some ‘tidings of this or that’, of things he doesn’t quite know, but are in some way authoritative bits of information about his fellow man. The eagle complains that the man is bookish and lacking in experience and so carries him to the house of fame where he might hear some real ‘tidings’. There he witnesses a goddess grant fame to some, but obscurity to others. The fickleness of her decisions made clear in the following quote:

“Madame,??? they said, “we are people that here beseech you to grant us now fair renown and let our achievements have that name; in full recompense for good works, give us good reputation.???

“I deny it to you,??? she said without delay. “You get no good fame from me, by heaven, and therefore go your ways.???

“Alas and alack,” they cried. “Tell us, what may be your reason?”

“Because I wish it not,” she said. “No person shall speak good or ill of you, in truth, neither this nor that.”

Of those that deserve fame some are granted it, some are not. Of those that don’t, a similar rule (or lack of it) applies. Chaucer makes plain that the goddess of fame does not award her favours on the basis of merit, or even lack of it. The point that Chaucer is alluding to is that the histories that have been bequeathed to us are almost certainly littered with tales of the undeserving - but also that we can’t doubt all of it. Fame itself is no measure of authority.

The poet despairs that he is not getting any of the tidings of which the eagle promised, whereupon he meets a person who directs him to another house which is full of people gossiping continuously. Here he hopes to find some of the tidings which he was promised, but is again frustrated. He observes the progression of a piece of gossip and notes:

And when that story was fully spread, and had grown greater on every tongue than it ever had been, soon it went up to a window to go out; but before it could pass out there, it crept out at some crevice and flew forth directly and quickly. And sometimes then I saw a lie and a sober truth at the same time by chance draw near to pass out of a window. And when they met there, they were both checked and neither could go out, each so crowded the other, until each cried shrilly, “Let me go first!??? “No, but let me! And so you will do so, I here assure you that I shall never part from you, but be your own sworn brother. We will both so mingle together that no man, no matter how angry, can get only one of us, but both at once, all without his permission, whether we come by morning or night, or summoned loudly or quietly whispered.??? Thus I saw falsehood and truth compounded fly abroad as one piece of news.

Such a description could have been straight from the mouth of Keen while deriding the proliferation of voices as it occurs on the blogosphere.

Famously, the poem ends just as poet spies a person of great authority. Many have speculated whether the poem was simply incomplete, or that Chaucer was making a larger point by ending it this way. Whether or not it was intentional, it is pretty characteristic of the revelationary dream. So many times have I dreamt of something which was the answer to the problem at hand, always to wake up just before it was revealed to me. There is even a scene in the Simpsons where Homer tries to dream of an invention that will solve his money problems, but it is always obscured and just out of view.

So it seems with ‘authority’. That Chaucer was faced with a concern so similar to that of Keen and his ilk, suggests strongly that the problem of authority is a lot older than the internet. And with such a view point, one quickly comes to see the current debate as somewhat of a dead end. The proliferation of voices on the internet is not necessarily something to be feared, because it is arguable, and highly doubtful that they are supplanting any genuinely authoritative voice. But similarly, just because this new form of expression represents the great Demos doesn’t by necessity grant it any unassailable authority either.

The question of what constitutes authority - the source of Chaucerian tidings - is one of THE great philosophical questions. It is eternal, and unlikely to be solved by the likes of Keen and Lessig. This is not to say that debate should not continue and that there is no hope to an answer. But such debate must be properly contextualised and given its appropriate gravitas.

Of course, there are plenty who would disagree with me. For some, this is a mission against the old-guard reminiscent of the revolutions that toppled ancien regime politics in Europe beginning with the French revolution. Here’s an excerpt from a post from the DailyKos, a liberal political blog that has been embroiled in tit for tat exchanges with professional pundits like Professor David Brooks and others:

There are a lot of very sharp, energetic people at Daily Kos, the kind who aren’t cowed in to obsequious submission by the foolish experts, the banal people who fetishize credentials, or the “wise, serious people” who write for the other “wise, serious people,” the kind who rave about the latest inanities of David Brooks. Some of these banal and insecure pundits, these protectors of privilege and suck-ups to power, feel threatened by the media revolution of the last decade. They were accustomed to talking to us, but they haven’t grown accustomed to us talking back to them. Instead of adapting to this change, or even embracing it, occasionally one of the more insecure but reckless of these “important people” takes a pot shot at us “rabble” at places like Daily Kos. And invariably someone steps forward to show that the “important person” is actually a fool. Kurt Andersen’s pot shots at the Daily Kos community are foolish and inaccurate, but he at least inspired this witty demolition not only of his shallow article, but also of his shallow-sounding novel.

In this passage you see that the author is not just concerned with a levelling of all voices - but in a total undermining of the professional commentating class (at least those that try to undermine the authority of the Daily Kos community). Never mind that in attacking sites like Daily Kos, those professional pundits have recognised the authority of such voices - the point I’m making here is that a full scale battle is being waged for the hearts and minds of the people, and those that wage the battle believe in that for which they are fighting. The liberals at the Daily Kos do believe in the ‘media revolution’, that they are supplanting the ‘inane’ discourse of the David Brookses and the Kurt Andersons with something whose authority is underwritten by the size of their audience. To quote from the same article:

Dear Kurt Andersen,

I have, of late, finished reading your 620-page tome Heyday, and in light of your recent comments about DailyKos, feel that it might be worthwhile for us to discuss both works of historical fiction in concert. Frankly, I felt sort of forced into volunteering for this task, because I don’t know anyone else here who’s even managed to read any of your book. We, on the other hand, have on average 487,391 page views per day, so while it is possible for others to join you in poorly-researched criticism of this website, the task of commenting on your book has fallen to me. Luckily, I read your book thoroughly–a technique you yourself might be wise to try–and feel confident in discussing your book on the merits of what it actually said.

Notice the rhetorical flourish. It is pointed out to Anderson that his book will hardly be read while Daily Kos has a readership of near to five hundred thousand people a day. The surface reason for including this information was to show that a review would have been hard to come by if it weren’t for the current author. But the subtext is clear: “We have an audience, you do not. This is our legitimacy, and is what underpins your lack of legitimacy”. (Interestingly, the author still believes that she can maintain an objective and neutral perspective on the book she is reviewing, feeling confident she can discuss the book ‘on the merits of what it actually said’. But this is hardly plausible given the subtext of this passage. The fact of including the superfluous information about the Daily Kos readership conveys the belief that she wishes to supplant the supposed authority of Anderson with that of her site. One can hardly be objective with that sort of starting position.)

This was just intended as an example of a group of people that believe they are fighting the good fight, and would no doubt disagree with me when I claim that their rise does not represent a substantive change in the consciousness of mankind. But I could also quote Andrew Keen or David Brooks at length as well, and show their efforts to undermine the challenges to their authority. But there is no need as I think the point is made. They similarly believe that they are fighting the good fight. They believe their authority is granted by the institutions that made them.

What is ironic is that a deep philosophical discussion about the foundations of authority in discourse is usually to be found in academic, professional circles - and seldom outside. It’s a fact that many English departments around the world engaged in a lengthy critical debate about various, post-structuralist, post-modern and deconstructionist theories whose central theme is the undermining of an authoritative foundation to discourse in general. Such a position is admirable and brave in at least that in so doing they threatened the very foundation which grants them relevance in contemporary society. I remember writing in an essay for one of the courses I took in the english department at Sydney University where I stated that if the various theories undermining the concept of an authoritative discourse were correct, then what value should I place in the grade I ultimately received? Nevertheless, I certainly recognise the value of their teaching now insofar as they intended it to add to the critical store of ideas from which I could draw to analyse the world around me.

All in all, these sorts of considerations make the brutal fight for authority as conducted by the Keens, the Brookses, the Kos, and the rest seem positively shallow. It would be nice if they all just stepped back from the push for power for a moment and just thought through a little more what they were all fighting about. When placed in its proper context, such a push for authority is just one small cap gun explosion in a history littered with massive wars.

As I stated earlier, I don’t intend to make any contribution here to the question of what does legitimise a particular discourse or grant it authority. What I want to do is explore one potential for revolution which is independent of this issue. I explored the issue above because this potential needs to be clearly juxtaposed against it to be properly understood. So I turn now to my promise that I would give some account of the potential for the internet to be the source of a new form of consciousness raising. What could this be?

We begin to divine an answer when we look at just that for which the people are using this medium of expression. And we’ve already provided much of an answer in the discussion above. They use the medium to establish their authority in whatever niche that happens to be their own. The desire of many is to influence society, or to generate an income and free themselves from the tyranny of labour. Certainly this is true only of a subset. Many just want to share a discovery, write about their personal life, or engage in other forms of innocent social behaviour. But it is a very important subset. For they may indeed become the locus of a genuine revolution, but not in the way they themselves might think.

As I’ve claimed, this subset won’t be revolutionary because they are supplanting an elitist discourse with a genuinely authoritative discourse legitimised by the Demos, but because in order to wage their campaign for authority, they will undoubtedly use the tools of control and oppression that the elite has employed for so long. And in so doing will cause a general uplift in understanding about the nature of these tools, and thereby destroy their effectiveness.

Once the tools of oppression are rendered inert, the oppressed will truly be free.

We need to explore this in greater detail. When I talk about the ‘tools of oppression’ what do I mean? I do not mean overt tools of oppression like military force, or even social bullying. I’m talking about the non-overt means. The exploration of such non-overt tools is one of the central themes of this blog, and I’ve explored a number of different examples, particularly with respect to marketing. Non overt tools of oppression infiltrate the very structure of our day to day lives and determine our behaviour in ways we scarcely comprehend. Such tools include propaganda, rhetoric, marketing, public relations and the like. The success of these techniques is difficult to doubt, since in varying forms they have been practised since ancient times (rhetoric is the most salient example here).

What is remarkable is that over the thousands of years of their practice, society has built up little resistance to their power. The tools of rhetoric advocated by Aristotle still work as well today as they did back in ancient Greece. The explanation for this is simple. There simply hasn’t been a sufficient awareness of these techniques among the general populace. They are not common knowledge. They are not taught to primary school children. They remain the esoteric concerns of a minority that learn the modern professions of public relations or marketing.

But this may be about to change. The reason is not because an enlightened individual is about to come to power and show us the way (sorry Ron Paul fans), but because in the quest for authority that I’ve taken pains to describe above, individuals will begin to research and adopt all the techniques the elite has used on us for millennia. They will do it out of the general, selfish will to power that motivate all human beings. And they will do it without much consciousness of the fact that an understanding of these techniques renders one somewhat impervious to their future use. If this happen en masse, with each individual becoming their own marketer and public relations firm, then the tools of control will indeed be rendered inert, for we will all be savvy to their use.

This shift is already underway. I’ve written about it in my posts on revenue sharing and copy writing. Sites are popping up all over the internet showing a blogger how to market themselves on the internet, how to produce viral content, how to write good copy…etc. It’s a growth industry and many are already making tidy sums by imparting their previously esoteric skills to all the Joe Schmoe bloggers out there.

Once these techniques are laid bare, there will be a shift from the production of content which is superficially appealing or manipulative, but to content which is actually good. The discourse will shift to a rigorous debate on not how to convince people of your point of view, but on how to arrive at the best point of view in the first place. It will no longer be about convincing anyone, or striving to achieve the authority we all crave so much. It will be about consolidating the philosophical groundwork that underwrites quality in fact, and not in style. Instead of seeking agreement with OUR view, we will instead seek agreement - period. We will come to the table not with a preconceived notion of what the truth is, but be prepared to hunt for the truth together with those who share a similar desire to engage with an open mind.

The revolution is not guaranteed. There are many things which could prevent it. Net neutrality could be scuttled by the elites, fearful of the alternative voices rising up against them. A new elite of professional bloggers could arise (or could have already arisen) - that makes it difficult for smaller voices to rise to the top. These sorts of scenarios (and there are plenty more of them) would prevent the raising of consciousness because it would limit the motivation for the masses to go out an learn the tool of oppression of which I speak.

Hence I left the qualification ‘might’ in my title. I also put “real” in scare quotes in a deliberate piece of self-mocking irony. After all, this is a vanity blog - it has my name on it. It can hardly be claimed that I am not just one among the rest shooting for my piece of the pie. I make my assertions and implicitly assume a degree of authority in so doing. My motives and ambitions need to be questioned as much as anyone else’s.