Profound Heterogeneity

0 To characterize too quickly, but generally accurately, most lines of argumentation treat the internet as simply a tool, one which will be used poorly or well in relation to producing a democratic state. For the most part critical work on democracy and the internet asked the question, “Does the internet help/hurt democracy?” (the question of the 1990s) evolving into the question, “In what specific ways does the internet help/hurt democracy?” (more contemporary framing). But the internet is not just another tool, a hammer to be used poorly or used well, as McLuhan understood, the meaning of some tools is not in how they are used, but in their existence. While it is useful to consider how the internet affects current political institutions, enhancing or undermining their roles, I think it is more important, in fact imperative to consider how the internet might more fundamentally change what it means to be political to act politically and even to question the polity itself. That is I want to suggest that asking how the internet alters democracy is already to ask a certain type of question, predisposed to a certain type of response. By asking the question is the internet good or bad for democracy we have already set off on a particular analytic path, too hastily cutting off other avenues of exploration, other necessary and crucial questions.  I want to suggest that we ask more fundamental questions, not to learn how the internet changes the way democracy operates, but rather to think how the existence of the internet calls into question the very idea of democracy.

0 This is my investigation into this question.

0 What’s with this unusual form? Read here.