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This was indeed a strange dream. But were there possibilities buried under the metaphor and hyperbole? Kelly wrote of a group mentality, of individuals working toward the one, of possibilities beyond the comprehension of any single person, all brought together by the Net. Birkerts wrote of a place where imagination and introspection are dead, of a time when the power of the human mind has gone soft from the spoon feeding of the "Net." To examine both sides properly, a review of some basic assumptions is in order. These assumptions appear to be the foundation of both essays. First, the use of the computer is the next social revolution, and the use of the computer network to communicate is a prominent facet of that revolution. Secondly, the human animal is a social animal. Communication forms an important part of the fabric of society. Accepting the occasional exception, a human being must communicate with others of his/her kind in order to stay sane. Finally, the synthesis of the two will create something different; there will be a radical change in the way people perform their business. The essays disagree on what this radical change will be, and their versions of this assumption are reviewed above.
My claim is that the last assumption is wrong. There won't be a radical change. Society will gradually evolve, and there will be unforeseen side-effects, but I don't believe the Electronic Hive metaphor is accurate. I believe this because, very simply, I think both authors have missed three very critical aspects of society: there are great many of us, we are of a modern age, and we are inherently conservative.
Kelly asserts that a whole bigger than the sum of its parts will emerge. I don't believe this will happen in Society, because our internal loyalties do not lie toward the Internet. Our internal loyalties lie toward our families, our communities, our national identities; all of these would have to be overcome before we could accept our place as a cog in a giant machine. In addition, our sheer numbers would get in the way. How can we achieve our full freedom to develop when I have to worry about poking my neighbour in the metaphorical eye? Without this freedom, I can't see how the Hive would form; or, at best, it would be a brain damaged hive, with all its bees bumping into each other. No outside force controls us to keep order; thus, chaos would rule the hive, as anarchy currently rules the Net.
Birkerts asserts that the Hive would result in the death of individuality. But, in this modern age, our individuality is all but dead. (Once again, there are always individual exceptions.) We are in an age of rationality. Religion as a fundamental part of our existence died when the Age of Reason and Science became dominant. We have our ID numbers, and we offer our oaths of allegiance to communities, nations, even to the whole of humanity. We come home, and watch our TV, and become Nielsen statistics. Our individuality remains only to our close circle of friends and family; to somebody in Chicago, we're just Canadians. (Or damn Canadians, depending.)
Thus, in some sense, the essays are irrelevant. The Hive won't form, at least not in the benevolent form that Kelly predicts. As to Birkerts, it doesn't really matter what the Hive does to us, because we did the damage a long time ago. Therefore, history repeats itself; all that we have done is make the history more apparent.
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