One ill for another?

<![CDATA[Doc Searls recently wrote about the Howard Dean thing that he wasn’t a partisan for any candidate, rather “I am a partisan for the Net. What I am advocating is clueful use of the Net by every candidate.”
Doc maintains an important distinction in this statement that seems to be lost for many people: The Net is a tool that can be used for good (“clueful’ in Doc’s rendition of goodness) or for ill.
The defense of the Net as an intrinsically good influence on politics is a grotesque mistake. Essentially, it is arguing that the Net should replace the nation as the central identifying characteristic of a people. Now, it is good that the Net extends beyond national boundaries and, so, connects people in transnational communities.
But if we suppose that replacing the jingoistic phrase “My country, right or wrong” with “The network, right or wrong,” we risk creating new forms of totalitarian ideas that could make the nationalist movements of the 20th century look downright tame. After all, the Net reaches everywhere. During a nationalist or tribal genocide, a potential victim can hope to escape the geography where the hatred and killing is a living organ of the state, where a powerful networked movement of irrational hatred would have no borders, leaving no refuge.]]>