The truth about the internet.
I've often written that the internet offers us a merging of information and communication.
That may very well be true, but at the most basic level, the internet is little
more than a pipeline through which anything digital can, and does, flow. In this
sense, pictures of Janet Jackson's breast are no different than sonnets by Shakespeare,
or textbooks on nuclear physics. The technology doesn't stop to check what's
passing through it.
It's basically for this reason that crying, or making fun, over what people search
for, is ultimately an unabashedly elitist endeavor - an endeavor not only unconvincing,
but unjustified because the complaint is directed toward a technology which is
ultimately a great equalizer. For better or for
worse, Shakespeare and Janet Jackson waft as equals in the winds of cyberspace.
That may disturb some of us (and surely some people think, even if their reasoning
is beyond me, that Janet Jackson's breast ranks considerably above anything
written by Shakespeare) but it's relatively axiomatic when dealing with the internet.
And a corolary to that axiom is that none of us can determine for anyone else
what's worthy of our attention and what isn't.
Perhaps a more distressing corollary to that same axiom is that although this
entire column has been enjoyable to write, ultimately it lodged a complaint which
I'm not even sure is justified. On the internet, at least, let a thousand flowers
bloom, and a thousand breasts expose.
Go to: All that technology for ... that?