The concept I have to play around with today is the internet, the world wide web, and as usual my head spins wildly, grappling with the tails and tendrils, up-sides and down-sides of my subject, in this case, the biggest thing in human history.

The internet is the ultimate in the democratization of information(among other things of course, but in this article I will stick with the informational aspect of the beast.) Thanks to Google and the virtually limitless supply of wikis out there, anyone can be informed to varying extents about pretty much anything. At this stage of its the development the internet has become a yawning chasm, assimilating the world’s knowledge and regurgitating it on demand for our collective and individual edification, and, by and large, I think its great.

But not simply great. The role of information in our lives is enormous, and the way we acquire, evaluate and relate it to each other are fundamental considerations in our individual lives, as well as in our collective destiny. Something like the internet, which is irrevocably transforming all aspects of our relationship with information, is not something to be wandered blindly into, as most of the world appears to be doing. Internet is the new television, for many, even the majority of, people an excuse to refuse to do something meaningful with their lives, by engaging a socially acceptable addiction which bears a passing resemblance to reality. Social networking, to use a convenient example, can in some cases be a form of social onanism, people engrossed in relationships with entities as unreal as any soap personality, while taking comfort in the fact that they are not alone. Unlike t.v., one doesn’t even have to wait for tomorrow’s water cooler conversation to be reassured of the normality of one’s behaviour. Electronic heroin would be a nicely melodramatic name for it-but an apt one too, they resemble each other right down to the withdrawal.

Information is everything of which we are conscious. It’s not just the words on this page, or the bytes that make up an mp3, but also the sensation of your fingers on the mouse, the sound of the cooling fan in your ears and the smell of coffee in your nose. The internet supplies us with information from the most basic sensational level, to the highest echelons of our cognition. In terms of the acquisition of the information, the internet has only one advantage-ease of use. The volume of information on the internet found during a ten minute surf pales in comparison to that which we acquire during a ten minute outdoor walk. The internet really specialises in highly developed realms of information-the printed word, music, video. Here it comes into its own. It disseminates these media faster and more efficiently than any other tool. It also allows for their retrieval easier than could be imagined in a pre-Google world. Luddite that I am, I have two problems with this.

First of all it doesn’t allow for the accidental discovery of unexpected information. An internet search is done on specific terms-one doesn’t catch a glimpse of a book with an interesting title, or an article on an exotic subject while whacking the words ‘biodiversified haystacks’ into Google. As we move further from newspapers and libraries into blogs and portals we lose the breadth of knowledge that differentiates a wise person from an informed one. The onus will be on the individual to do this for themselves, and as incidental information becomes harder to find, less people will choose to do so. The kind of knowledge that our fathers and grandfathers had, a holistic wisdom with its emphasis on breadth rather than depth, may well end in this generation. In more practical terms, this will leave experts without the kind of context that gives real meaning to their work-a physicist for example, without any understanding of the philosophy that underpins his method, or a lawyer who fails to understand the sociological impact of his profession. The more powerful the web becomes, the less opportunity there will be for the minor epiphanies that spring from the discovery of a hitherto unknown interest. We will all be poorer for it.

Secondly, activities that were previously restricted to a location where certain documents, records etc were accessible, are now limitlessly mobile. Research can be done in bed, one can work on a tan and on accounts on the same hotel balcony-all that’s needed is a laptop and a wireless modem. We can work anywhere, but does this mean we should work everywhere? From my own limited experience, certain environments are designed for certain activities. I could easily do all my reading for college at home-just pull my materials out of databases instead of from musty shelves-but there is a genius loci (look it up, you’ll be glad you did)in the Trinity library that simply cannot be replicated in my own house(despite, or perhaps because of, the ready supply of tea and cushions.) In Trinity the shape of the building, the muffling of sound by the physical presence of so much knowledge, even the manual searching for each individual volume, all these have contributed to insights I could have found nowhere else. Which I’m sure is precisely what the architect intended…but what kind of buildings would he invent if their uses were as manifold as those of the internet itself? Could such a space be made? Would it even be wise to do so? Our buildings aren’t just a space for our bodies, but also for our minds(a rational explanation for the effect of feng shui) and the dissolution of barriers between where we play, learn and work will have a very definite and unpredictable effect on this.

It’s tempting to allow this article go sprawling away, like its subject, but restraint is always the preferred option in these circumstances. The problems with evaluation and relation of information are interlinked and already well documented-self-diagnosis based on unregulated sources being a prime example. I don’t want to deal with such practicalities. Instead I just wanted to look at some of the questions that spring from the fundamental idea of(to resurrect a defunct phrase) the information superhighway.

The internet is great. I would go as far as to say that without it, the challenges of climate change, energy crises, pandemics, loss of biodiversity and general global insecurity, would prove too great for the human race to overcome. Without such a pooling of our collective knowledge, the end of our species would be an even greater certainty. But it comes with dangers, and to embrace every stage of its development without question, would be a grave error. Already it has become an organic system, its growth, and the growth of its role in human affairs, is inexorably massive. There remains only each individual’s control over their own interactions with it. I would counsel caution, and advise anybody who has had the misfortune to read what I consider a very dry article to its end(seriously, not one flash of biting wit, I must getting soft) that the answer to the real question of our existence is unlikely to be the internet.

PS To paraphrase Sideshow Bob, I am aware of the irony of the internet being my only means of promulgating this article to any meaningful extent.

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Spontaneous creative expression is the ultimate in intuitive improvisation. It is also the riskiest. How well will the message be projected? How well will it be received, if it ever is? Such a spontaneous moment where genius is born, or another asshole is unleashed upon the world… visionaries blossom or fools are spawned. The old adage, “think before you speak”, comes to mind. But then with pause comes risk management. What is now the agenda behind the message and who gets to deliver it? Enter the proactive edit. Enter censorship.

Art is weaponry, technique and craftsmanship the launch pad and vision the missile. It is the armament shielding against the prevailing validity and reaffirmation. It is first strike and it is reciprocation via escalation. It is an insurgent release of the comedic, the tragic. It can be censored, but it cannot be quelled.

In the Cape region of South Africa, I was dumbfounded by the lack of rage in their street art. Maybe it is more prevalent farther north; yet, after ages of subjugation, oppression, and now repression?—I would think a new found democracy with uncovered atrocities would lend to an art renaissance. Yet this release I could not find. As I wondered through shop, gallery, street fair, and by graffiti-ed wall, I found minimal expression of former anguish, current emancipation, and fear of uncertain futures. From my eyes, their art was purely decorative, tribal, and expressionless of the pain of injustice and the salvation of freedom. Is there still an imbedded fear of reprisal? Have they yet to learn from so many oppressed centuries, how to piss at the wind? Or is the message so subtle, I just can’t see it.

How do they vent their rage beyond violent acts of revenge? I sensed impending danger, like knowing a friend who for too long bottles up so much and then explodes in a rage befitting an equal or greater negative response from any or all affected. I fear more than a self inflicted ear lopping.

           I’ve always been drawn to artists who evoke an emotional response or even just a raised eyebrow, a single moment of questioning in the eye of the beholder. The more fringe the more fitting, but I think that had to do with youth rather than the message. My friends are Guerilla artists, social pranksters who can insert a disruptive micro-moment into the flow, a hiccup in the continuum, insidiously subliminal or shockingly insurgent; the disruptive effects ranging from the minimally amusing to the most prosecutable with the common purpose to jar awakening in the moment, a reversal of the collective mental environment… consciousness. Adbusters out of Vancouver, BC is the most organized in this aspect, an anti-media medium whose sole goal is to break a hypnotic meme by fighting fire with fire, gloss over gloss. I can’t tell if it’s working on the collective consumer consciousness or they are just preaching to the anti-choir. I do know it only matters that they exist and are determined not to be silenced.

           A friend, small in stature but not in fortitude, is a metal sculptor and the epitome of the minimal subliminal. She takes on quite large installations and yet sees them as too small. Ladders, bucket trucks, cranes, and spark of torch are her tools; grinded, polished, welded scrap-metal her medium. Formerly an oil tanker captain, yet with humble Buddhist footprints, her expressions to the receptive eye are profound. She envisions her monoliths erected throughout the valley in receding farm fields desperately warding off the poisons of over-development. She sees monuments of purpose with labeled titles of ‘Frustration’, ‘Anger’, ‘Denial’, and ‘Punishment’, all physical manifestations of her feelings toward war, intolerance, indifference, and injustice. If the farmers only see a free artsy-fartsy tourist draw, and the tourist only sees an anomaly worth investigation, then mission accomplished. A layer has been penetrated. A different type of seed has been planted in tired soil.

It’s enlightening to take time to smell a different rose. I’m always looking for and applying the original spontaneous, the intuitive off-the-cuff, sketches, paintings, graphics, art, writings, poetry, whatever and wherever contrary dissent oriented; anything that encourages an underlying undermining mental environment that is contrary to the perceived absolutes of the prevailing one… the one that’s purpose is solely for the pursuit of pure profit regardless of the human condition. Why? Because Lord Acton’s epic warning that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” is no more obvious than it is today. I’m also quite a curmudgeonly contrarian. And remember, rarely does anyone get paid for this passionate form of expression, so occasionally invite them to dinner. More than likely, they are a little gaunt.

Peace

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Right, let’s take a controversial topic today. Religion. The world’s great spiritual traditions. And militant atheism.
The pope is in Turkey today, as a head of state, as a source of encouragement for the country’s beleaguered Catholic population and most importantly, it would seem, as an agent of dialogue between religions- in this case, the Greek Orthodox Church and the colossus that is Islam.
I am myself a severely lapsed Catholic. I went cold turkey several years ago, when I first heard Jeffrey Lewis sing:

“God is just a story someone made up long ago
Before they had books and t.v. shows
I don’t believe in him and I ain’t afraid to say so…”

I’m currently chugging along on rationality and some vaguely utopian ideals, but again as the great songwriter said “It’s hard not to be superstitious, despite all you know.” That pretty much sums up my position. Sometimes I get so thankful, and sometimes I get so scared and other times so concerned, that I positively need to unload my hopes and fears and joy into something inconceivably bigger than myself. And I need to believe he’s listening.

There’s also the question of rationality, which in itself has no rational basis(at least I think that was the gist of Bertrand Russell’s writing-there were large tracts of his books I didn’t understand.) There is always the possibility that God really is just messing with our heads, or in the Buddhist tradition, we are messing with our heads. There are monotheists in all faiths who believe everything just occurs through the will of God, and at a certain fundamental point, this is as rational a position as holding that the universe runs according to certain immutable laws that can be determined through reason and observation.

The problem is that we’re all starting from different points of view. Two people who look at a wafer of bread in the hand of a priest will see very different things depending on whether they believe at the most fundamental level in pure reason, in God’s message as communicated by his incarnate son, or in God’s message as communicated in our heart of hearts, but only when we stand on our heads in genuine faith and squawk like a chicken. There is no real objective way to decide which of these beliefs is the truest. At a certain point, everything is faith.

This is why, when on my frequent and aimless trawls through cyberspace, I find some asinine group with a name like The Rationale Police or The Society for the Prevention of Intelligently-Designed Anti-Theism, I get all annoyed and write vaguely offensive gobbledegook like this sentence. It is utterly, utterly pointless and stupid to go about trying to destroy religion, or even convince others of its untruth. I have no problem with people ridiculing intelligent design or being generally insulting when religious groups try to go toe-to-toe with scientists on their own turf, but when you try to dispute their beliefs from first principles, you’re guilty of the same mistake.

The worst thing about this whole ‘science v religion’ debate/fiasco, is that really most of the people are on the same damn side. There are no substantive ideological differences between any middle-class western people. None. Do you think that people that support abortion believe that aborting a fetus is the same as killing a child? Or that those against it think they aren’t acting in the woman’s best interests? Each side believes they’re acting in the best interests of the child, the mother and society. Yet with these acres of common ground, there is no dialogue between the two sides. So we bicker over our petty differences while crime spirals out of control, adolescents kill themselves and the world begins to broil…

Frankly, I admire all the religious men in the world who have peace as their aim, whether they are protestant ministers, Roman Catholic priests or Muslim Imams(I hope thats the right word, I really am not au fait enough with the Muslim religion.) I particularly admire the pope when he calls for tolerance and dialogue between religion(it’s a little known fact that this was the subject of the speech he with that medieval quotation in it, the one that sparked those riots all over the middle east.) This tolerance and dialogue must extend further however, to encompass all ideas and philosophies. The only means through which the human race will have a future is if the battle of ideals is moved to a plane where everyone will suspend their preconceptions and actually figure out where the hell the ship is going.

And that means scientists too.

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“We have no trouble getting universities for exchanges. They like us because we’re old and have cobblestones”

Jimi Hendrix roars from my computer and I’m briefly dislocated from my musings, part of which includes the above statement. My German tutor said it a few weeks ago, in a context that is now useless to try and recall. I’m always stunned at how modern Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix sound, especially live, without even whatever rudimentary sound technology they had in the sixties.
So anyway what I have to discuss and think about is a disembodied statement, which as usual I’m gonna play with and turn around in my head until the light shines on it just the right way, until what it really means can be spelt out. Other universities don’t like Trinity College because it’s old and has cobblestones. I like it because does. I feel secure walking over the cobblestones because they’ve been underfoot for 300 years, far longer than I’ve had feet to walk them. Bram Stoker walked on them, as did Oscar Wilde, Robert Emmett and Jonathan Swift. It’s a link, and a very definite one. After I graduate(if I graduate) and go on to something notorious and worthwhile, I’ll be considered to be one of their brethren.

The strange part, however, that I already consider them my brothers, by virtue of our being Irish. I’m sure people from other nations would share this view-”You’re Irish! Like Oscar Wilde!” This raises some questions in my mind however-as they were an entirely different breed of Irishman than I am. They were part of a Protestant Ascendancy, a ruling class when my antecedents were attending barren farms in the remote west of the country. Forty years earlier, in what was an essentially theocratic Ireland, I would have needed special permission from a bishop to attend the institution at all. We’re different-separated not only by time but also by culture and tradition.

I love tradition, and so I am a member of the Phil. The Philosophical Society is the world’s oldest student society, a paper reading and debating society. And during its debates any points of information are offered with one hand stretched out to the speaker and the other on one’s head. On one’s head that is, because to keep it at one’s side would render it a little too close to a vestigial sword for the speaker’s comfort. But no one has a sword anymore and without it what’s the point? Most of the guests to the Phil probably wouldn’t understand the significance, they’d be somewhat outside the joke so to speak. But more importantly, if Oscar Wilde wasn’t entirely decomposed, if his corpse was suddenly vitalised and he appeared on a Thursday night at the Graduates Memorial Building, he would recognise it instantly. And right there we have another layer of meaning of the seemingly innocuous phrase-”We’re old…” We are old, and what’s more-we’re still here.

Tradition isn’t only a great unifier of disparate generations. It also divides the people who live side by side in the same slice of time. Like forty years ago, the Provost, Fellows and Scholars living and studying within the walls of Trinity and the Catholic majority sitting without. This aspect of tradition troubles me-I don’t think there’s any justification for it. It is the same as was the tradition of white supremacy in the Southern United States and the tradition of imperialism in the former British Empire. It had (and continues to have) division as its objective and hatred as its inspiration, yet it serves the same purpose as the great western traditions of democracy and fundamental rights-it binds humanity through history. I can only suggest that such traditions, those that thrive on fear, are in some way repugnant to something deep within the human psyche, and certainly that is how it seems so far. At all times in human history injustice has only survived in cultures of ignorance and oppression. When people are equipped with freedom and sufficient education to distinguish vice and virtue, virtue has always triumphed. And I can only hope that it continues to do so. Tradition is that which we consider worthy in enough to be preserved. When it isn’t worthy it eventually breaks under the weight of its own tyranny, as it did with slavery and imperialism, and as it is doing in the case of economic oppression in the developing world. (Ed. Note: see The Economic Hit Men and Exploitation) It is essential to remember, however, that there has never been any guarantee that it will continue to do so. Faith should always tempered with doubt. My faith in the noble traditions of the world is always tempered by the doubt that they might just be as temperamental as those that have collapsed in the craven pit of their own ignominy. The onus is on all of us to ensure that the traditions we observe tie us to our living neighbours, as much as our dead relatives.

The music on my laptop has slid gently into the softer side of Smashing Pumpkins. And I have gradually come to the conclusion that other universities like Trinity because the real traditions have survived, and survived for centuries. People sharing the ideals of learning and fraternity have trod the cobblestones through the centuries And thus the traditions tie us to places like Bremen and Passau in this century…Trite it may be, but also true. We love the same things really…

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