Glorifying The Obvious

But as Andrew Shapiro explained to me later, that shouldn't be taken as an official Technorealist stance. Another movement loyalist might reach a different conclusion. The important thing was to consider the issue Technorealistically: mindful of history, free of cant and prejudice.

Certainly it is a fine idea to discuss technology from an open-minded, common-sense, critical perspective. Motherhood, apple pie and long battery life are good things as well. The difference is that such universally acknowledged positives don't usually stir the souls of free-thinking individuals, at least not to the point of having them offer their names and reputations to public manifestoes. Which raises the most interesting question concerning Technorealism: why have some of our brightest young cyberwriters burst forth in unity to promote this vapid, muddled treatise?

I think that it's partly a generational thing. The founders are mostly between 25 and 35, fed up with the overly hyped enthusiasms of boomers who brought a '60s-style advocacy to technology. Also, lurking behind the tentative prose of the Technorealist document is a wonkish-liberal aversion to some of the unyielding free-market theories rattling around Silicon Valley. But the timid Technorealists don't dare to pin down exactly how government might regulate the market; with typical delicacy, they just intone that ""government has an important role to play'' and encourage more discussion--as if that debate weren't already raging furiously from Washingtons on two coasts.

Individually the Technorealists may be passionate about living in an era marked by technological change, but collectively their battle cry is somewhere between a shush and a snore. They shy away from hyperbole, but the information revolution is itself a hyperbolic phenomenon. They are eager to assure people that traditional means of policymaking can help manage the changes that technology brings. But since no one knows the extent of those changes, such assurances are baseless. How ironic to declare yourself a realist in a field that literally remakes reality. And ultimately, how futile.

© 1998