By Neil Dixie Wills - posted by permission. Thanks a million Neil!
Dynamic, perceptive, cutting-edge - epithets not often uttered in the same breath as the Church of England (bless her). Cybernauts Awake <www.cybernautsawake.net> just might alter that. The CoE's 60-page book on the ethical and spiritual implications of computers, IT and the Internet covers almost every (presently) conceivable aspect of cyberspace and makes essential reading. From digitisation to info-consumerism via data shadows uncannily echoing Orwell, you won't find a more inordinately-educated stab at the future of cyberspace (and a Christian response to it) than this. Oh, and for the future of cyberspace read the future of just about everything.
The unconvinced would do well to scan the names of the working party responsible for the report: an impressive huddle of experts in some mesmerising specialities with the added bonus of a member of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (which apparently exists despite its Private Eye overtones). Their book's stated purpose is "to encourage an informed awareness" about the changes which cyberspace will inevitably impose on our lives. The authors paint a world where computers are pervasive, where the concept of distance is dead, where physical limits are meaningless, and fundamental ideas such as truth and personhood are up for grabs. That's today's world. Tomorrow's looks far far weirder.
The most timely aspect of the report - surely the freshest and most open-minded to emanate from the CoE for aeons - is its exploration of the new moral dilemmas which we face as cyberspace expands exponentially. Dehumanisation, the concentration of power, the meaning of relationships, the meaning of property, globalisation, the broadening haves/have-nots divide, the creation of a subclass of non-Net users, the ever-distending bigness of Big Brother and computer chip implants in humans - I could fill this entire space with the full panoply and you'd still be able to come up with more. The writers go as far as to contend that "we have to figure out right and wrong again".
There can be little doubt that the coming of computer technology and the Net marks a sea change in civilisation. It is as radical as the discovery of fire or the invention of the wheel. As the report puts it, "Technology changes what is possible. It also changes what we think of as possible." One might add that, in all likelihood, the majority of the world's population who lack access to the new technologies will be forced to wave farewell to those who can set themselves adrift on a sea of gigabytes as they chart new still-unimaginable horizons. It has already happened once in the case of the Industrial Revolution, the global effects of which are still keenly felt today. There's every reason for believing that the Cyber Revolution will be even more seismic.
Although the report understandably throws up more questions than answers, it does at least attempt to ascertain what principles of Christian ethics are applicable to cyberspace and comes up with three more-or-less useful tests by which to govern our actions. Its final section also deals with the practical implications of cyber technology whether you're a techie or merely a user.
If I must criticise the book, and I do not hasten to do so, it does suffer at times from its attempt to be all things to all people. It includes, for example, an explanation of what e-mail is. If you don't already know, I'm afraid you're unlikely to be able to grasp the majority of the concepts in the report. However, the authors must be commended for their avoidance of unnecessary jargon throughout - a truly Herculean task given that cyberspace is a jargon junkie's paradise.
With all the hubbub attending the coming of the year 2000, there's a veritable maelstrom of tabloidesque conjecture out there and remarkably little thoughtful analysis concerning what the future might bring. If you love cyberspace or live in terror of anything remotely digital you really ought to read this report because although we still live in an age where "some things can't be represented in digital form, like love and terror" you can bet they're working on it.