Far too accessible, eh Mr President? Too much access. By all means
let's not provide our electronic networks with *too much access.*
That might get dangerous. The networks might rot people's minds and
corrupt their family values. They might create bad taste. Think
this electrical network thing is a new problem? Think again. Listen
to prominent litterateur James Russell Lowell speaking in 1885. "We
diligently inform ourselves and cover the continent with speaking
wires.... we are getting buried alive under this avalanche of
earthly impertinences... we... are willing to become mere sponges
saturated from the stagnant goosepond of village gossip."
The stagnant goosepond of the *global* village. Marshall MacLuhan's
stagnant goosepond. Who are the geese in the stagnant pond?
Whoever they are, I'm one of them. You'll find me with the pulp
magazines and the bloodcurdling comics and the yellow-covered works
of imaginary daring. In the future you'll find me, or my
successors, in the electronic pulps. In the electronic zines, in
the fanzines, in the digital genres, the digital underground. In
whatever medium it is that really bugs Grover Cleveland. He can't
make up his mind whether I'm the scum from the gutter or the
"cultural elite" -- but in either case he doesn't like me. He
doesn't like cyberpunks.
He doesn't like cyberpunks. That's not big news to you people I'm
sure. But he's not going to like cyberpunk librarians either. I
hope you won't deceive yourselves on that score.
Weird ideas are tolerable as long as they remain weird ideas. Once
they start challenging the world, there's smoke in the air and
blood on the floor. You cybernetic LITA guys are marching toward
blood on the floor. It's cultural struggle, political struggle,
legal struggle. Extending the public right-to-know into cyberspace
will be a mighty battle. It's an old war, a war librarians are used
to, and I honor you for the free-expression battles you have won in
the past. But the terrain of cyberspace is new terrain. I think
that ground will have to be won all over again, megabyte by
megabyte.
You've heard some weird ideas today. That's what we're here for --
weird ideas. I like reading Hans Moravec. I respect him, and I pay
close attention to what he says. He's a true fount of weird ideas,
and in my opinion he's a credit to the basic values of the American
republic. I think he even makes a certain amount of sense,
technically and rationally, if not politically and socially.
But then again, I don't think the Ayatollahs have read MIND
CHILDREN yet. If they had, they would recognize it as complete and
utter blasphemy, far worse than Salman Rushdie's SATANIC VERSES.
If Hans actually got around to creating a digital afterlife right
here on Earth, I'm pretty sure the Moslem fundamentalists would try
