I recently read _TAZ_ for the first time. It was on the shelf at St.
Mark's Bookshop here in NYC in the "Anarchism" section, I hadn't read it,
and I knew of it only from the Wagner/Goldberg paper.
Everyone go read it now!!
There are many other things in the "Anarchism" section of the St. Mark's
Bookshop in NYC, by the way. Should any list readers stop by the city,
check it out. The people browsing the section are more fun than the
section itself.
I knew about anarchism before I really knew about cryptography. Peter
Marshall's _A History of Anarchism_ was a present from parents who were
worried that the "anarchy club" at the local junior high might present the
wrong idea. (They figured drawing the libertine circled A was enough).
Later on Emma Goldman's essays proved valuable; those are reprinted and
available at the same bookshop. Both of these are no nonsense, no
bullshit, practical overviews of what anarchism is about...no hermenutics
necessary.
Digression aside, Hakim Bey asks in _TAZ_ the question "where are my
turnips?" By this he means "when are computers going to deliver on the
revolutionary promise?" When will we be able to use computer networks to
exchange goods that people *actually care about* ? When will I be able to
trade something I have (knowledge about esoteric aspects of relativised
cryptography, say) for some concrete strange *physical* goods I want
(Cuban hallucenogenic fruits, controlled substances, organic turnips)?
(See, the information-only goods don't count. they're not REAL ENOUGH.
Besides, what kind of revolution is it when the only benefit is free
Britney Spears songs?)
He's asking this in _1989_. WHERE ARE THE TURNIPS IN 2002?
Recently we saw this question echoed by Morlock Elloi -- are there
compelling reasons to ask for privacy and anonymity, besides the fact that
a bunch of (unemployed) cypherpunks are True Believers? A more pointed way
to put it would be "have the technologies we've argued about for the past
ten years *actually* changed **anyone's** lives?"
Well Tim's already partially answered this in the word "Napster!" Some 19
year old went and changed the world, created something even nontech
friends of mine not only *could* use, but *did* use. **all the time**.
Never mind that Eric Hughes had a design for something similar with his
Universal Piracy Network; this guy actually did it and the world is
fucking CHANGED because of it.
We can point to anon remailers as well; if it gets the Church of
Scientology gets hot and bothered and causes them to ruin the lives of
random people and Cypherpunk tech can stop that, well ain't that a good
thing in the end? isn't that what we're after? concrete technologies to
"make the world safe for privacy" or realize that "spectre of
crypto-anarchy" depending on your temperament?
Now we have a vision from Adam Back, the vision of a privacy
protecting independent media enhancing "storage surface" which will allow
niche REAL REPORTING to survive in a censorship resistant fashion. I think
it's a **beautiful** vision. the problem is, wasn't this what the web was
supposed to do, at least in free countries where censorship is less of an
issue? wasn't self-publishing supposed to enable a wave of voices,
bringing about the radical decentralization of self and viewpoint
prophesied in the 1960s? (a decade I know little about beyond the accounts
of _Psychoanalytic Politics_ and the aforementioned Peter Marshall book
_Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism_). Weren't we all
supposed to tune to the EZLN site with the same attention and credulity as
we gave to cnn.com? How will
freenet+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
be any different?
What I get from Hakim Bey in TAZ at this point is a skepticism about the
idea of computers as enabling the Temporary Autonomous Zone. In their
place, he has the usual bullshit about how it's all about "becoming" and
all about presence, spontaneity, self-defintion, and so on.
(echoes of this essay by Benjamin about "The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction," which tries to save the notion of art by
invoking a mystical "presence" of the work which is supposed to save the
"original" work from becoming indistinguishable from its copies. today
the copies are perfect. I am listening to Britney on CD now; I listen to
Britney on mp3 over Napster tomorrow; I listen to Britney on Ogg via
Gnutella the day after and they all sound the same -- where is the
presence here especially since the "original" studio tape is kept locked
Platonic ideal style up away from where I'll ever get a chance to see it!)
So what is missing from the computer networks of today that gets in the
way of this real social change that people have been proclaiming forever?
or did the amazing change happen and I just missed it? Is there something
about our current networks that actively HINDERS the TAZ?
hell, is the temporary autonomous zone still what "cypherpunks is about"?
-David
