Margaret Wertheim explores the interlinking of the Internet, society and the spiritual

06/08/99

Margaret Wertheim, host of PBS' "Faith and Reason," is an internationally known science writer and commentator living in Los Angeles. She has written extensively about science and society for magazines, television and radio. Ms. Wertheim is the author of two books: Pythagoras' Trousers (W.W. Norton, 1997, $13.99), a history of the relationship among physics, religion and women; and The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace (Doubleday, 1999, $24.95), a cultural history of space from Dante to the Internet.

In the latter, Ms. Wertheim explores the allure of the Internet and new technology. "The 'spiritual' appeal of cyberspace lies precisely in this paradox: It is a repackaging of the old idea of heaven but in a secular, technologically sanctioned format," she writes.

"The perfect realm awaits us, we are told, not behind the pearly gates, but beyond the network gateways, behind electronic doors labeled .com, .net and .edu."

Ms. Wertheim holds two degrees, a bachelor of science in pure and applied physics and a bachelor of arts in mathematics and computing. For 15 years, she has worked as a science writer, first in her native Australia and now in the United States.

Ms. Wertheim has penned television documentaries, including the award-winning, six-part series Catalyst, a science and technology show aimed at teenagers.

Dallas Morning News Technology Staff Writer Doug Bedell recently interviewed Ms. Wertheim.

DMN: New technology has a chance, you say in The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace, to "contribute to the understanding of how to build better communities . . . not Utopian, but distinctly Christian . . . less eurocentric . . . more a network of relationships."

As a race, haven't humans understood how to build communities but simply opted out for a variety of social and economic reasons? Given history, why is there such great hope that a fully developed cyberspace will be any different?

WERTHEIM: A very good question. As a race, we have indeed been building communities successfully for many millennia. You are right - it's not something we have never learned. What I would say is that in the West, anyway, it is something we have in many ways forgotten how to do. Or as you put it, we have opted out of making our communities a priority.

DMN: So the Internet can't really make us interact with each other - is that what you're saying?

WERTHEIM: It's not that I believe cyberspace can teach us anything fundamentally new in this department, rather that I was pointing out that in itself it can serve as a powerful new metaphor for the importance of community and the ways in which communities need constant maintenance and support. What I was hoping to do with that section of the book was to show how cyberspace - and its underlying network - can provide us with a useful, contemporary metaphor for how communities are formed and of the need for concerted and continuing upkeep of those communities.

It seems to me that today many people in the West seem to think that communities are just something that happens spontaneously, and people forget that each and every one of us has a responsibility to actually create and sustain healthy, viable communities.

If that's something we want in our lives, then like the Internet, we have to devote time and resources to it.

We each have to take responsibility for being social network managers.

DMN: People are only part of the network if they have unfettered access and freedom. You must therefore see great danger in the corporate push to dominate Internet communications networks.

WERTHEIM: Absolutely! I do see great problems if the networks are dominated or controlled by huge corporations - which is what we already see some corporations trying to do (i.e. Microsoft). My fear here is twofold. One is that if corporations take it over, the potential power of the Internet as a democratizing tool will be negated and cyberspace will become just like another version of television - another great chasm of corporate-controlled junk, another black hole of cultural sludge with the odd good program/site. But most of it will be third-rate pap -more techno-Prozac if you like.

DMN: Is the incursion of technology into education also somewhat perilous?

WERTHEIM: Already some universities are demanding that their professors have Web sites for each course. I see that as costs rise, there will be great pressure to do more and more teaching online, not in person. In that case, having this funneled through corporations could be a disaster.

As you probably know, many schools, including UCLA, are already teaming up with corporations to produce online versions of their courses so these can be sold on the Net. I think that if things like education fall into the hands of corporations, we are all in real trouble. There are some things that I believe the state should be responsible for - education is one of them.

DMN: In most of what I've read about your personal take on the possibilities for new technology, you shy away from your own predictions about how history will record this period of Internet development. Are you more or less optimistic about its positive potential than when you first logged on?

WERTHEIM: I think I am both more and less optimistic. I am less optimistic precisely because I do see the corporatization of the Net happening very fast, and I fear that large corporations will come to dominate. Having watched the Net develop since the early '80s, I am sorry to see this happening; we all had such high hopes of it not going that way. However, I also think that, despite this corporatization, the Net is a powerful medium that will also allow lots of smaller groups and individuals to use it for their own purposes.

DMN: Give me an example of the good side of the Web at work.

WERTHEIM: One online group I belong to recently circulated a posting about how the Zapatistas have been using the Net to further their cause of social justice in Mexico. This is very encouraging to me - it shows that it's not just a tool of rich white folks.

I also get postings from time to time about what's going on in the Balkans from people there. So the Net can provide a powerful new means of expression and circulation of information for all sorts of social groups.

DMN: Hans Moravec, a Carnegie Mellon robotics expert, basically says we're technologically destined to become gods on Earth. We're creating robotic machines in our own image. Ultimately, technology will allow us to lord over a new race of beings. Our spirits will live forever, uploaded onto a universal network. Most people cringe at this thought. Give me your brief take on the underlying reasons for this visceral reaction.

WERTHEIM: I think most people realize instinctively that eternity in cyberspace would be banishment to some new kind of hell. Unlike Moravec, I think most of us see that immortality per se is not necessarily a desirable goal - to be of any value, immortality would have to be in a value-laden place, in a genuine heaven or nirvana.

DMN: In a recent online discussion, you talked about the "contempt for the body" that Moravec and other artificial intelligence philosophers seem to hold. You wrote: "This contempt for the body (and the desire to escape it by disembodying the mind) cannot be fully understood unless we also understand its historical linkage with a deep Western ambivalence towards women." Can you elaborate on those thoughts for me?

WERTHEIM: The Western Platonistic tradition, which has been characterized by a general contempt or at least disrespect for the body, also has long historical roots in a dualism that saw male and female as polar opposites. In this tradition, maleness (and men) was associated with spiritual and intellectual pursuits, while femaleness (and women) was associated with matter and the earthly realm of the body.

The contempt for the body (and for the realm of matter in general) was part and parcel of this dualism - whatever was seen as female was seen as lesser than whatever was seen as male.

Women themselves have long been regarded in Western history as imperfectly developed or underdeveloped men. To most of the ancient Greeks - especially Aristotle - women and all things female were considered lesser, lower, of inferior quality and value. Thus the hierarchy of body and soul, matter and mind has itself long been a reflection of the supposed hierarchy of women and men.

DMN: In some quarters, there seems to be an undeniable urge to re-create the Internet as a newfangled television. Doesn't this rush right past the Internet's most valuable potential contribution?

WERTHEIM: I would agree with this absolutely. There are many forces now pushing the Internet in the direction of TV to make it another arena of passive consumerist reception. This trend does bother me, and for many people I suspect this is what it will be.

As I said above, however, there will be others who use the technology in different ways, and I think that the Net does enable this subversive use much more powerfully than TV does - this is so simply because television programs are so expensive to produce and distribute, whereas anyone with a basic computer and a bit of software can have a Web site or an online journal.

I have myself written and produced a dozen TV programs, so I know how expensive and difficult it is to get alternative visions onto TV, but the Net really is a cheap mass-distribution medium, and this makes a vast difference.

Doug Bedell can be reached by e-mail a tdbedell@dallasnews.com.