IAH 206 sec 001
Final draft due: 3 Dec 2001
essay 5
source: school/arts/iah206/essay5.wpd

Democracy, n.:
A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass
meeting or any other form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy.
Attitude toward property is communistic... negating property rights.
Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate,
whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion,
prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.
Result is demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.
-- U. S. Army Training Manual No. 2000-25 (1928-1932), since withdrawn. ⁽¹⁾

The Internet can be a force for greater democratic citizenship. "Democratic citizenship" can mean simply the operation of the democratic process within a democratic political system, or it can mean the set of actions by individual citizens, even anarchistic ones, which promote the further development of a sound democratic system. In either case, the Internet can facilitate greater democratic citizenship, although there exist valid objections that it can also be a negative force.

In order for individuals to make informed decisions as actors in a democratic society, they need to have accurate, relevant information. Information technology has allowed this. For instance, during the Iran-Contra hearings, the internal E-mail that Oliver North had sent was viewed as important evidence, and Congress was able to read it because of the multiple redundant backup systems built into a typical computer. The Internet itself allows information-gathering even under ordinary circumstances, when there is no wrong-doing. They can read news articles from all over the world, and search the archives of many papers, from their own homes or from a terminal in a library. Importantly under a representative form of government, they can look at official political platforms of the various candidates with just a few mouse-clicks.

The Internet also helps individuals to express themselves and communicate or broadcast information. As Graham pointed out (66, 79), E-mail has many advantages over other forms of communication, advantages which are germane to the democratic process. It even has advantages over the other 20^th-century technological developments of telephone, radio and television. Individuals can compose E-mail without any more equipment that a home computer, which is a mass-market item, but they can sent it to one other person, or a public entity such as a radio-station, or to a large group of people. Web pages are the more-effective broadcast side of the Internet, and these, too, can be composed with very little effort. Noble claims that the original Luddites "exposed the reality of the technology, challenged its uses, ... and sought greater control over the direction of technological development itself." (Present-Tense Politics 12) Certainly the Web and E-mail can be effective in exposing and challenging social ills. Whether they lead to greater control depends in part on the general effectiveness of a particular democratic government at being democratic.

Both of the authors in question have major reservations about whether the Internet will actually serve as a significant force for democratic citizenship. Graham explores the possibility that it could lead to one of a few different kinds of anarchy. Noble, in another article, noted that information-technology is used by major universities to more-tightly control their faculty. However, even in China, while the Internet has not resulted in the overthrow of the communist regime, it is a place where citizens can exchange ideas and information interact in ways that no society allowed before. There are state-appointed moderators of all forums, but they don't necessarily apply draconian criteria to their charges, because they want to help the citizenry be conversant with the new technology. Technological progress is a double-edged sword for any state and for any citizen-body, and the Internet is no exception.

1. Ken Arnold. 'fortune' program, included in Slackware Linux version 3.2. Walnut Creek, CA: Walnut Creek CD-ROM, 1997.