Politics and Citizenship
Some futurists predict that the Internet will spark a populist political
revolution. "I can understand why people fantasize like this," said Michael
Cornfield, a professor at George Washington University's Graduate School of
Political Management. "But the Internet will no more pull Americans into
politics and transform the government than did public-access cable television."
The principal flaw in utopian visions, he said, is that "somehow politics will
vanish and we will all proceed as a community" thanks to online communications.
"But community politics is an oxymoron. Politics is about difference, about
accommodation between people who don't like each other but have to agree
anyway."
The Internet provides what Cornfield called "faux populism," feel-good
participation devoid of responsibility. True populism exists in town meetings
and political conventions--settings that "don't make you feel good; they make
you exhausted and fray your nerves because you have to make authentic, binding
decisions." He suggested that the Internet's pseudo-
populism could
distract people from "the kind of politics that really matters: party
politics, interest group politics, grassroots organizing."
Cornfield also outlined another problem. "We are in a period of serious
excitement over politics and chronic exhaustion with government," he said. "The
interactive media are great for political opinion exchanges, but today most of
the messages are bashing government." That attitude, and the NII's potential
for reinforcing it, worries him because without a powerful, legitimate central
government, "there can be no individual liberty, no community justice, no
physical or economic security."
What role should the government play in developing and deploying the NII? "The
best program I have seen for economic development in United States history, and
what I think we should emulate for constructing the cyber-marketplace,"
Cornfield said, "was the project of economic development advanced by the
Republican Party in the '50s: the 1850s." What he termed "Abraham Lincoln's
Contract with America" included three measures to develop the American
frontier. The Pacific Railroad Act helped create the transportation
infrastructure. The Homestead Act granted public lands to settlers after five
years' residence and improvements, and the Land Grant College Act gave public
lands to the states for institutions of higher education.
These programs offer "the right model for the electronic frontier," Cornfield
said. "Along with an infrastructure, our government should be sponsoring both
entrepreneurial activity and research and training centers." A cyberspace
Homestead Act might cede certain online rights to entrepreneurial pioneers. A
new education program would help train people to use the new technologies.
"I think this would be a popular political agenda," he added. "Americans often
have overcome their apprehensions about the future by supporting civic projects
which remind them of their past."
Faux populism is the plebiscitary spectacle of people talking that makes
participants and spectators feel good.... Now on the Internet, we have people
saying you can download the Contract with America, then press the reply button
and they will listen to you.... Guess what happens when you press the reply
button and tell Newt Gingrich what you think? You get the same thing you would
have gotten had you sent Newt Gingrich a telegram: an automated acknowledgment
and a place on his mailing list.
Michael Cornfield
Professor
Graduate School of Political Management
George Washington University
