SECTION:
Technology and Culture
Mark Perry
Unprecedented Access and Choice: The Internet, Global Systems, and the Generation of Paradigms of Cultural UnityBesides the speed with which it provides information, the internet is characterized by three other important qualities: 1) It provides the individual systemic universal access to information, i.e. access that is independent of time and space. 2) In expanding public access it preserves the right to private ownership. That is, it reconciles the public and private spheres on a vast scale ("publitization"). 3) It greatly expands the individual's choices and possibilities for learning.
Early fundamental forms of universal systemic access include the establishment of national and international currencies; international agreements on weights, measures, and telephone and computer standards; radio; national and, more recently, international television networks; the international air traffic control system; and to a certain degree the United Nations, the World Health Organization and other international bodies. The challenges of these systems of universal access are clearly seen in the concern with which many societies view "McDonaldization" and the role played by corporations in the globalization process.
It is quite possible that the three qualities of universal access, universal choice and publitization will become more common, or even standardized in many other fields. Even today we witness the creation of very new systems that, like the internet, benefit consumers and businesses alike in a win-win situation typical of publitization: free public transportation (Portland, Oregon; Hasselt and other cities in Belgium); car-sharing (Switzerland, the U.S.), bike-sharing (various European cities), and community supported agriculture. Perhaps the most impressive new system is the rise of what is known as the global civil society movement, which is a clear example of a meta-system since it is built upon the internet.
Indeed, all of these systemic developments are self-generating meta-systems; however, what distinguishes the early forms from the recent ones in the internet age is that now we are creating them more self-consciously.
This paper will explore how these new technological paradigms of systemic universal access, universal choice and publitization might become more generalized cultural paradigms, and foster or inhibit unifying cultural processes. It will address the question of how self-conscious systemization, in the context of organized social resources on a global scale, creates new freedoms and capacities of human action as well as new restrictions and challenges. It will explore how social and cultural organizations will have to weigh the benefits and disadvantages of specific forms of systematization as they emerge, and how nations and populations will have to make choices regarding them. Finally, it will attempt to anticipate the future cultural impact of global systematization, which, if the internet is any indication, will likely evolve continuously and ever more rapidly, and in many simultaneous and unexpected ways.
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