Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob

Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob

From the author hailed by the New York Times Book Review for his “drive-by brilliance” and dubbed by the New York Times Magazine as “one of the country’s most eloquent and acid-tongued critics” comes a ruthless challenge to the conventional wisdom about the most consequential cultural development of our time: the Internet.

Of course the Internet is not one thing or another; if anything, its boosters claim, the Web is everything at once. It’s become not only our primary medium for communication and information but also the place we go to shop, to play, to debate, to find love. Lee Siegel argues that our ever-deepening immersion in life online doesn’t just reshape the ordinary rhythms of our days; it also reshapes our minds and culture, in ways with which we haven’t yet reckoned. The web and its cultural correlatives and by-products—such as the dominance of reality television and the rise of the “bourgeois bohemian”—have turned privacy into performance, play into commerce, and confused “self-expression” with art. And even as technology gurus ply their trade using the language of freedom and democracy, we cede more and more control of our freedom and individuality to the needs of the machine—that confluence of business and technology whose boundaries now stretch to encompass almost all human activity.

Siegel’s argument isn’t a Luddite intervention against the Internet itself but rather a bracing appeal for us to contend with how it is transforming us all. Dazzlingly erudite, full of startlingly original insights, and buoyed by sharp wit, Against the Machine will force you to see our culture—for better and worse—in an entirely new way.



Customer Review: A good idea very poorly executed

This book is a quick read - sadly, that is its only virtue. It was a good idea, to examine the hazards of becoming a society of entertainment consumers and not a society of producers and creative thinkers. Mr. Siegel's real argument seems to be with capitalism itself, but most of his criticism in Against the Machine is directed at those who make money via the Internet. Mr. Siegel makes a lot of claims in this book, but effective claims need the support of evidence, and the author has little more than anecdotal evidence based on his own limited observations. He rambles considerably and, at times, his claims are completely outlandish. Examples:

* He gets off to a bad start in the introduction, where he points out that motor vehicle fatalities in the 1960s reached 50,000 per year, but that "people stopped dying on the road in staggering numbers" when automakers became "safety-conscious." Except that in 2007, over 41,000 people died in motor vehicle crashes. How is 50,000 deaths "staggering" but 41,000 acceptable?

* Mr. Siegel writes, "Ten years ago, the space in a coffeehouse abounded in experience. Now that social space has been contracted into isolated points of wanting..." I'm not sure where the author hangs out, but my local cafes and restaurants practically roar with the sound of conversation.

* The author makes considerable criticism of Bill Gates. He conveniently avoids mentioning the thousands of lives that have been saved through the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

* Mr. Siegel hates the distribution of pornography online. Fair enough, I'm not wild about it either. But he makes a simplistic argument that avoids First Amendment complexities. He also brazenly writes, "...your immersion in this online world of forbidden images takes place on your home computer..." Right! It only takes place on your home computer if you seek it out.

* This is how the author describes shopping in a bricks-and-mortar store: "meeting someone new, running into a friend, daydreaming, talking on your cellphone while you browse through the aisles." When I go shopping, I experience crowded parking lots, being jostled by rude shoppers (many of whom are too wrapped up in cell phone conversations), and being insulted by rude cashiers. I'd love to find Mr. Siegel's magical store.

* The author doesn't seem to realize that personal ads and auctions and garage sales were around long before the Internet, judging from his hatred of Match.com and eBay.

* Mr. Siegel describes an actress pretending to be an emotionally scarred teen on YouTube and equates this with George W. Bush's distortions about WMD's in Iraq. To Mr Siegel, every slight is a grievous tragedy.

* Near the end of the book, the author writes that "you are stigmatized as being elitist and antidemocratic...every time you criticize the Internet..." I've heard many public and private individuals criticize the Internet without being labeled elitist or antidemocratic.

Overall, Mr. Siegel seems too lazy, too emotional and too out of touch to prepare a reasoned, mature argument. His complaints are so generic, it's often not even clear what his real argument is. He treats the Internet as some malicious entity, instead of a tool that can be used for malicious purposes by some individuals. He had a good opportunity with this book, and wasted it. Don't waste your time reading Against the Machine.

Customer Review: This book is so good

This book is so good. Siegel is one of the few writers who aren't caught up with all of the hype of Google and Web 2.0. What's popular isn't always what's right and Siegel is right.
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