------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the March 20, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
PRINTING PRESS HASTENED REVOLUTIONS NOW IT'S THE INTERNET'S TURN By Deirdre Griswold The speed at which a new international anti-war movement has developed has stunned the ruling classes everywhere and elated those pressing for social justice and equality. Many have observed that this was impossible before the Internet brought the world together as never before. What an irony. Because the Internet was first developed by the Pentagon to meet its own needs for high-speed communication for military research and development. It quickly became an indispensable business tool--as the mushrooming up of dot-com industries showed in the 1990s. But once computers and Internet access became affordable to workers and students, and the knowledge to use them efficiently spread throughout the working class, the genie was really out of the bottle. Not since the invention of movable type and the first printing of books back in the 15th century has a new technology of communication had such a profound impact on social movements. Printing was actually invented first in China. But the Chinese language had 80,000 different characters instead of a short phonetic alphabet, so printing books was not practical. In Europe, improvements in paper and printing, some learned from the East, coincided with great peasant rebellions against the landed estates as feudal authority was beginning to break up. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed as the nobles tried to repress these peasant wars. In addition, the needs of a rising bourgeoisie for free trade were fast coming in conflict with feudal restrictions. By the 1400s, much of the impetus for social change was being directed against the Catholic Church, which not only owned huge tracts of land where it oppressed the peasants but also had a monopoly on learning. Monks with quill pens were the guardians of the written word. Monasteries were the libraries of the Middle Ages. Only priests were allowed to interpret the word of god. Then came the Gutenberg Bible, named for Johannes Gutenberg. It was the first Bible put out on a printing press, making it affordable to the rising merchants and artisans of the day. Poring over its words, those seeking authority for their dangerous new thoughts about what society should be like could find in the Bible's parables and stories the justification they needed for taking on the old social order. They no longer had to bow down to the Biblical interpretations cautiously doled out by the priesthood. Clutching their newly printed books, they were soon rising up in mighty armies against the status quo. Of course, the printing press also facilitated the spread of other information that stimulated commerce and the scientific-technological revolution. But its most famous early achievement was the Gutenberg Bible. The Protestant Reformation was the beginning of a revolution in Europe to replace feudalism with capitalism, but this upheaval was at first expressed as a struggle over religious dogma. It took further developments--both in the growth of science and technology and in the rise of both bourgeoisie and proletariat--for the Reformation to evolve into the Enlightenment. By the 18th century, the bourgeois radicals in the French Revolution, who called for "liberty, equality and fraternity," no longer leaned on theology to justify their battle for social change. Is today's Internet, like the printing press of Gutenberg's day, going to be the catalyst for another, deeper social change, so desperately needed and so long in the making? It certainly has a lot going for it. Speed of dissemination makes it an ideal organizing tool for mass movements. Also, emails can be sent at no extra cost to tens of thousands of people. Web sites are accessible to anyone with a computer. And while that was once prohibitive for the majority of workers, computers are now affordable in much of the world. Even if they don't own a computer, students and workers can access them at schools, libraries and cyber cafes. Use of the Internet has exploded even as the corporate media have become more controlled and monopolized than ever. People in smaller cities and towns, especially, are at the tender mercies of the television networks and a few so-called newspapers like USA Today. But millions now surf the web and find what they can never get from their local media: news and opinion contradicting the establishment view. This partly explains the unexpectedly high level of anti-war activity outside the big cities--that and the increasing poverty and joblessness in many less populated areas. In addition to speed and low cost, the Internet is having another very profound effect. It is not a one-way street. It allows people to exchange views with one another in a less inhibiting forum than most public encounters. Much publicity is given to the dangers of the Internet, its use by sexual predators and so on. But most people know that this is a medium in which they can express their deepest thoughts with fewer inhibitions. If they want, they can do it anonymously. How they look, dress, whether they live in a shack or a palace, whether they're on opposite ends of the earth, they can talk to each other as long as they share a common language. And there's always :-) symbols when words run out. It can be a form of communication stripped of all that is superficial and that evades capitalist society's prejudices. It can reinforce a sense of common humanity. Humor has blossomed on the Internet. People in chat rooms often treat each other with affection and warmth, even though in many ways they are total strangers. While the themes of television and movies so often terrify and belittle people, they feel empowered on the Internet. It's too early to know all the social ramifications of the Internet. But, coming at a time when the contradictions of capitalism become more frustrating and criminal every day, it has fantastic potential for helping to punch through a path to the future. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. 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