The Amateur

Computerist

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/

February 2023 Toward 25 Years of the Netizen Book (Part 5) Volume 35 No. 5

Table of Contents

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Page 1

Expanding Commonwealth of Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 3

The Computer as a Democratizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 19

Proposed Declaration of the Rights of Netizens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 25

Participatory Democracy From the 1960s and SDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 27

Introduction

The year 2022 marked the 25

Anniversary of the May 1, 1997

publication of the print edition of Netizens: On the History and Impact of

Usenet and the Internet by Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben. This issue

is again part of the celebration of that Anniversary. All four articles are by

Michael Hauben. The first three are Chapters 16 and 18 and the “Proposed

Declaration of the Rights and Netizens” from the book. The last article,

“Participatory Democracy From the 1960s and SDS into the Future On-

line” was written in 1995. In these articles, Hauben examined the bigger

context and significance of the Net, in particular its political and social

dimensions.

The first article, “The Expanding Commonwealth of Learning:

Printing and the Net,” compares the emergence of the printing press to the

emergence of the global computer network and demonstrates how the Net

emerging in the 20

Century is continuing the important communication

and social revolution that the printing press began in the 15

Century. Just

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as the printing press essentially replaced the hand-copying of books in the

Renaissance, people using computers and computer networks in the last

30 years have been essentially creating a new method of production and

distribution of creative and intellectual works. Both printing and computer

networking foster an increase of enlightenment and intellectual ferment.

Also, print shops and printing houses became social gathering places and

social networks of scholars developed. Similarly, the Net facilitates the

formation of netizen social networks. The article traces many parallels be-

tween the printing and the computer networking developments five

centuries apart. Those parallels should help us “understand why the

printing press should be seen as the forefather of the currently developing

computer networks.”

The second article, “The Computer as a Democratizer” projects that

computers and the Net may lead to more democracy. It does that by

examining what James Mill phrased as freedom of the press, or liberty of

the press. This “freedom of the press” or uncensored press makes possible

the free flow and exchange of different ideas so all people can size up the

issue and decide their own positions. Mill argues, as does Thomas Paine,

that active participation by the populace is a necessary principle of

democracy. The personal computer and the Net make possible more

uncensored speech and more participation. The article concludes that, “this

is an exciting time to see the democratic ideas of some great political

thinkers beginning to be practiced.” But it adds, hard work by many

people aspiring for more democracy is still needed because there still must

be the hard fight against tyranny.

The next article, “Proposed Declaration of the Rights of Netizens,”

was written by Michael Hauben as a New Year’s message on January 2,

1994. It was a draft declaration and a request for other netizen contribu-

tions, ideas, and suggestions of what rights should be included. Netizens

are due these rights, according to the author “in recognition that the net

represents a revolution in human communications that was built by a

cooperative noncommercial process” and as netizens are those who take

responsibility and care for the Net. Inspiration for the Declaration was

historic and current expressions of rights and “the current cry for

democracy worldwide.”

The last article, “Participatory Democracy From the 1960s and SDS

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into the Future On-line,” connects the 1960s student movement in the U.S.

for more democracy led by SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) with

the computer and network advances that developed in the 1970s and

beyond. SDS analyzed the problem it was addressing in the Port Huron

Statement as the lack of any real democracy in the U.S. They felt that the

United States society is called a democracy, but had ceased being

democratic after the early beginnings of American society. The SDS

program included the understanding of the need for a medium to make it

possible for a community of active citizens to discuss and debate the

issues affecting their lives. While many people made their voices heard

and produced a real effect on the world in the 1960s, lasting structural

changes were not established. However, the computer movement of the

1970s made an important achievement. It created the personal computer

and forced the corporations to produce computers that were affordable by

many people. The author argues that the computer and network advances

coupled with the availability of personal computers transformed the SDS

goal of the 1960s of a direct or participatory democracy into an achievable

goal for our times. “These new technologies present the chance to

overcome the obstacles preventing the implementation of direct democ-

racy.”

[Editor’s Note: The following article was posted on Usenet in fall 1963.

A later version appeared as Chapter 16 of Netizens: On the History and

Impact of Usenet and the Internet by Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben

published in 1997 by the IEEE Computer Society, on pages 291-304.]

The Expanding Commonwealth of

Learning:

Printing and the Net

by Michael Hauben

A revolution in human communications is happening. People around

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the world are connecting to each other via the new computer telecommuni-

cation networks now known as the Net. The Net, in a significant way, is

a continuation of the important technological development of the printing

press. The printing press might seem to be an unlikely choice for such a

comparison considering the similarity that might be seen between the Net

and, for example, television, the telephone, radio, or the news media. That

is why it is important to compare the current networking developments

with the history of printing to understand why the printing press should be

seen as the forefather of the currently developing computer networks.

With the invention of the printing press in the second half of the

fifteenth century, there arose print shops and printing trades. Printing and

the distribution of printed works grew rapidly. In the last quarter of the

twentieth century, a global computer network has emerged which gives

users the ability to post and distribute their views and news broadly and

inexpensively. Comparing the emergence of the printing press to the

emergence of the global computer network will reveal some of the

fascinating parallels which demonstrate how the Net is continuing the

important social revolution that the printing press had begun.

The printing press developed out of a scribal culture surrounding the

hand-copying of texts. This scribal culture could only go so far in

furthering the distribution of information and ideas. Texts existed, but

were largely unavailable for use by the common people. There were very

few copies of books as each copy of a book had to be laboriously hand-

copied from a previous copy. Relying on scribal culture for access to and

distribution of knowledge caused many problems. Texts were often

inaccurate as scribes made mistakes while copying them. Since a single

scribe usually had access to only one copy of the text he was copying, he

had no way to know if he was duplicating mistakes other scribes had made

before him. The effect of copying mistakes, or non-exact copies, led to

numerous “versions” of the same text. Also, scholars who wanted to use

various texts had to travel in order to have a good variety of material to

study. The majority of people could not afford, nor did they have the time

to pursue scholarly pursuits. In her book, The Printing Revolution in Early

Modern Europe, Elizabeth Eisenstein writes: “[one] needs to recall the

conditions before texts could be set to type. No manuscript, however

useful as a reference guide, could be preserved for long without undergo-

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ing corruption by copyists, and even this sort of ‘preservation’ rested

precariously on the shifting demands of local elites and a fluctuating

incidence of trained scribal labor … wear and tear … moisture, vermin,

theft or threat.”

Under such conditions, scribal efforts did not preserve

many valuable texts. Plenty did not survive.

Just as the printing press essentially replaced the hand-copying of

books in the Renaissance, people using computer networks are essentially

creating a new method of production and distribution of creative and

intellectual written works today.

Around the same time that computer communications networks

started to emerge from computer communications research communities

in the early 1970s, the personal computer (PC) was developed by students,

hobbyists, and proponents of the free-speech movement on the West Coast

of the United States. The personal computer became widely available at

prices many people could afford. The PC made the power of the multipur-

pose computer available to a wider cross section of people who otherwise

would not have had access to time on a larger minicomputer or mainframe

computer which were then owned by universities, businesses and the

government. The personal computer movement made computers available

to the mass of people in the United States. As computers are multipurpose,

they can be used to accomplish many things. A PC can be made to dup-

licate the functions of a printing press, with the user having little or no

professional printing experience. In the past, a skilled printer combined

movable type and engravings (woodcut, or otherwise) to mass produce

copies of a page combining varied images (text, graphics, etc). The

personal computer brings this power from the master printer to the average

individual – both in price and availability. The personal computer (e.g.,

Apple II family, Commodore, Atari, TRS-80, etc. leading to the IBM PC

family, the Apple Macintosh family, Amiga, etc.) linked to an electronic

printer (first dot-matrix and daisy-wheel, later laser printers) and even

more recently to scanners which convert images into usable data – make

the production and reproduction of information a common task available

to all. Even if one does not own a PC, one can rent time on one in a store.

Copy shops (in themselves part of the continual process that made

publishing ubiquitous) have begun to have PCs available to rent time on.

These advances make the act of publication immensely easier. The per-

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sonal computer, printers and scanners, however, do not solve the problem

of distribution.

The recent development, standardization and interconnection of

computers via computer communications networks help to solve the

problem of distribution. Examples of on-line utilities include file transfer

(ftp), remote login to other computers (Telnet), remote execution of pro-

grams, electronic mail (e-mail), access to various information data bases

(gopher, WWW), other information searching utilities (archie, veronica,

Lycos), real-time chat (irc), and a distributed news service which allows

people to share information publicly and become citizen reporters (Net-

news). The two utilities most relevant to this revolution in human

communication are e-mail and Netnews (or Usenet). E-mail allows for the

private and semi-private distribution of information and communications

through messages to a particular person or persons, or to a designated set

of people via electronic mailing lists. Netnews allows for the public

dissemination of information, opinions and questions in an open forum.

When a Netizen makes a contribution to any of the many defined subject

areas (newsgroups), anyone from around the world who chooses to read

that particular newsgroup will have a chance to read that message. Use-

net’s potential for inexpensive global distribution represents one major

advance of Usenet beyond the printing press.

The printing press developed sometime in the 1460s and spread

quickly throughout Europe. The broad distribution of presses ended the

age of the scribal culture and ushered in the age of printing. “Unknown

anywhere in Europe before the mid-fifteenth century,” Eisenstein writes,

“printer’s workshops would be found in every important municipal center

by 1500.”

Eisenstein points out that the printing press dramatically increased

the total number of books, while at the same time decreasing the number

of hours of labor necessary to create books. She argues that this made the

transition from hand-copied manuscripts to machine-produced books one

of a revolutionary nature, and not evolutionary as claimed in much of the

literature about this transformation.

Understanding how the printing press

unleashed a communications revolution provides a basis to assess if the

establishment of worldwide computer communication networking is the

next communication revolution.

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New communication technologies facilitate new ways of organizing

information and of thinking. The invention of the printing press changed

the way texts were handled. From its outset, the men who controlled the

presses, the printers, experimented with ways to use the printing press to

change texts. Textual techniques such as “graduated types, running heads

… footnotes … table of contents … superior figures, cross references …”

are examples of the ways in which the press broke through some

boundaries which had previously limited the production of books in

scribal culture.

Moreover, the new technologies changed the way books were

written. The establishment of printing shops in the major European cities

formed a common meeting place for scholars and authors from across the

continent. The great number of printing presses and printing shops enabled

more people to write books and produce works that would be duplicated

by the presses. When these new authors traveled they would gather in

printing shops to meet other writers and scholars. Thus the printing press

facilitated the meeting of minds pursuing intellectual pursuits. The inter-

connection of people led to the quickening of the development of ideas

and knowledge. These progenitors of the printing trade were in the

forefront of the sweeping intellectual changes which the presses made

possible.

Similar connections among people are taking place on the Net

today at a much faster rate. And, just as the printers were in the forefront

of the printing revolution, so today the developers of computer communi-

cations software and hardware and netusers are the first to experience the

increased connectivity with other people around the world afforded by the

computer networks.

As printing spread, publishers realized the value of utilizing input

from readers to improve their product. Since the press could turn out

multiple copies of a first edition quickly, many people would see the first

edition and could send by letter their comments, corrections and criti-

cisms. Publishers and authors could then use this feedback to write and

print second, and third editions, and so on. Mistakes would be caught by

careful readers, and printers thus “were also able to improve on them-

selves.” Eisenstein explains that copied mistakes and mistakes in copying

common with scribal copies now could be caught by the increasing num-

ber of readers. She writes, “the immemorial drift of scribal culture had

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been not merely arrested but actually reversed.”

The Net likewise provides a ready mechanism for the interaction

between authors and readers. On the Net, people often keep track of

knowledge, such as lists of a musician’s records (discographies), or FAQ

files of answers to Frequently Asked Questions. Authors of these works

often act as both editor and compiler. People send further information,

which the keeper of the file often adds. This makes for a communal base

of information which is often available to anyone minimally connected to

the Net by at least electronic mail. The constant updating of information

on the Net continues the tradition of revising intellectual work introduced

by the printing press.

Eisenstein’s description of how communal information was gathered

is similar to how such procedures work on the Net. She writes: “But others

created a vast network of correspondents and solicited criticism of each

edition, sometimes publicly promising to mention the names of readers

who sent in new information or who spotted the errors which would be

weeded out.”

People who ask questions on the discussion sections of the

Net (either Netnews or Mailing lists) often summarize the answers they

receive and post this summary back to the Net. When doing this, many

compilers include acknowledgments to the people who supplied the

information. Also when people send in corrections to an FAQ, the keeper

of the FAQ often makes a list at the end thanking these individuals.

Eisenstein details these networks of correspondence in an example

of a particular text titled the “Theatrum.”

By the simple expedient of being honest with his readers and inviting

criticism and suggestions, Ortelius made his Theatrum a sort of coopera-

tive enterprise on an international basis. He received helpful suggestions

from far and wide, and cartographers stumbled over themselves to send

him their latest maps of regions not covered in the Theatrum.

On Usenet, too, making a contribution is an integral part of Netizen

behavior. Netizens make a point of being helpful to others. Often the Net

has made a positive difference in their lives and they return the favor by

making their own contribution, perhaps by answering the questions of

others or developing an archive. These individual and increasingly group

contributions are what have built the Net from a connection of computers

and computing resources into a vast resource of people and knowledge.

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People who use the Net have access to Net resources and can contribute

to them. Thus the culture of the Net has been shaped by people actively

contributing to the growth and development of the Net. The tale of the

Theatrum shows there is a historical precedent in human nature for this

“stumbling over oneself” in order to try and be helpful.

The flow of information to the publishers of the Theatrum meant that

at least 28 editions were published by the time of the publisher Ortelius’

death in 1598.

In a similar way, Usenet is by its very nature constantly

evolving. The basic element of Usenet is the post whose life is temporary.

The Usenet software is designed to “expire” or delete messages after a

certain time period. Without constant new contributions from people to

Netnews, there would be no messages to read or discussions to take part

in. So there is a constant evolution of Usenet. But, also the material in the

more permanent information depositories is often updated so they evolve

as well.

During the early days of the printing press, publishers’ requests for

information led to people starting their own research and work. “Thus a

knowledge explosion was set off,” Eisenstein exclaims.

The Net follows

in the tradition of the press, by having one set of people asking questions,

leading to another set of people conducting research. In this sense the Net

can serve the role as a thinktank for the ordinary person. So the advanced

possibilities the printing press made possible in the sixteenth century is

being replicated many times more by the Net today. It is important to

recognize and value Netnews for its contribution to human society and the

advancement of knowledge.

Eisenstein observed that the art of printing opened people’s eyes to

their previous ignorance. She quotes the German historian, Johann

Sleidan, in his “Address to the Estates of the Empire” of 1542, describing

the impact printing had in Germany, “[The] art of printing [has] opened

German eyes even as it is now bringing enlightenment to other countries.

Each man became eager for knowledge, not without feeling a sense of

amazement at his former blindness.”

This sentiment has been echoed by

many Netizens on Usenet and in other on-line conversations. People have

been amazed at what the Net made possible and how it was changing their

lives.

Eisenstein comments in her book on the role of feedback to early

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authors and print publishers. She wrote that feedback helped to “define the

difference between data collection before and after the communications

shift. After printing, large-scale data collection did become subject to new

forms of feedback which had not been possible in the age of the scribes.”

Computer networks likewise make possible very easy and natural

feedback. Once one reads a message (either public or private), a simple

keystroke allows the composition of an answer or response, and another

keystroke is often all it takes to send the response. This takes less effort

than writing to a publishing house or calling a television station. Since

responding to other messages becomes such a natural part of the on-line

process, the procedure becomes almost automatic.

Many people who use Usenet find television dull rather than thought

provoking. Doug Thompson, a user of Usenet, wrote “TV is so bloody

tame and boring in comparison to Usenet.” Others, too, have described

how they have completely stopped watching TV and reading the news-

paper because of Usenet.

Eisenstein refers to the process of constant improvement which

printing made possible, as observed by the Scottish philosopher David

Hume, “The Power which Printing gives us of continually improving and

correcting our Works in successive Editions appears to me the chief

advantage of that art.”

Eisenstein expands on this idea adding, “The

future seem[ed] to hold more promise of enlightenment than the past.”

This promise of a better future is also seen by those on the Net.

People on-line are being enlightened by the interconnection of peoples

around the world. The Net helps people to make social connections which

were never before possible, or which were relatively hard to achieve.

Geography and time no longer are boundaries. Social limitations and con-

ventions no longer prevent potential friendships or partnerships. In this

manner Netizens are meeting other Netizens from far-away and close by

that they might never have met without the Net.

Eisenstein reports that the printing press too helped people interact

with other people who they would not have met before its invention.

“Vicarious participation in more distant events was enhanced,” she writes,

“and even while local ties were loosened, links to larger collective units

were being forged.”

Improvement of information about other parts of the

world “by the output of more uniform maps containing more uniform

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boundaries and place names” helped people to know more of the facts of

the world. “Similar developments affected local customs, laws, languages,

and costumes.”

The Net similarly provides people with a broader view of the world

by introducing them to other people’s ideas and opinions. The Net makes

it possible to access more and differing viewpoints than were normally

available in a person’s daily life.

Much as printer’s houses in the sixteenth century served as places to

stop when traveling, computers and phone lines connect people around the

world as in our times. Eisenstein describes how such print shops, “point

to the formation of polygot households in scattered urban centers upon the

continent.” She observes that during the sixteenth century, “such printing

shops represented miniature ‘international houses.’ They provided

wandering scholars with a meeting place, message center, sanctuary, and

cultural center all in one. The new industry encouraged not only the

formation of syndicates and far-flung trade networks, similar to those

extended by merchants engaged in the cloth trade, or in other large-scale

enterprises during early modern times. It also encouraged the formation

of an ethos which was specifically associated with the Commonwealth of

Learning – ecumenical and tolerant without being secular, genuinely pious

yet opposed to fanaticism, often combining outward conformity to diverse

established churches with inner fidelity to heterodox creeds.”

The social networks made possible by Usenet and the emergence of

the printing press are very similar. Even though Netnews has no official

guiding body, Netizens have developed social rules which control and

mediate the medium. As the forum is democratic, there will be people who

have nothing intelligent to add, or only want to be disruptive or offensive.

Others will often debate these troublemakers and through argumentation

and the posting of opposite opinions help others to make up their own

minds as to the value of the original postings.

The printing press facilitated new cross-cultural networks which

encouraged “forms of combinatory activity which were social as well as

intellectual.”

Differing ideas were more easily set against one another.

The theories of Arabists were set against the theories of Galenists and

those of Aristoteleans against Ptolemaists. Eisenstein writes: “Not only

was confidence in old theories weakened, but an enriched reading matter

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also encouraged the development of new intellectual combinations and

permutations. Combinatory intellectual activity … inspires many creative

acts.”

The Net helps people communicate with each other who might not

have communicated before. Strangers meet each other because of interest

in each other’s ideas and this leads to new intellectual collaborations and

combinations.

The connection of differing ideas and people meant the first century

of printing is recognized for “intellectual ferment” and by what Eisenstein

writes was a ‘somewhat wide-angled, unfocused scholarship.’”

The new availability of different theories or opinions about the same

topics led Eisenstein to conclude that the contribution a scientist like

Copernicus was able to make was not that he produced a new theory, but

rather he was “confronting the next generation with a problem to be solved

rather than a solution to be learned.”

Lastly on this subject, Eisenstein

equates the quickening of science toward a “cognitive breakthrough of an

unprecedented kind.”

The Net is continuing and accelerating that

advance.

The lure of being able to produce numerous copies of books cheaply,

was that an author’s words could be spread around the world. This proved

to be powerful. Eisenstein quotes Maurice Gravier on the power the press

presented to the Protestant reformers: “The theses … were said to be

known throughout Germany in a fortnight and throughout Europe in a

month … . Printing was recognized as a new power and publicity came

into its own. In doing for Luther what copyists had done for Wycliffe, the

printing press transformed the field of communications and fathered an

international revolt. It was a revolution. The advent of printing was an

important precondition for the Protestant Reformation taken as a whole;

for without it one could not implement ‘a priesthood of all believers.’ At

the same time, however, the new medium also acted as a precipitant. It

provided the ‘stroke of magic’ by which an obscure theologian in

Wittenberg managed to shake Saint Peter’s throne.”

This idea is repeated

by the English writer Daniel Defoe (1660-1732), whom Eisenstein quotes,

when he wrote “The preaching of sermons is speaking to a few of

mankind, printing books is talking to the whole world.”

The Net has

opened up a channel for “talking to the whole world” to an even wider set

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of people than did printed books.

A social role which grew to be crucial in this new world of printing

was that of the master printer. His was the business of running a print

shop, and finding and promoting potential authors. In the course of this

work his workshop became a center of intellectual excitement. Eisenstein

explains that the master printer’s “workshop became a veritable cultural

center attracting local literati and celebrated foreigners, providing both a

meeting place and message center for an expanding Commonwealth of

Learning.”

This development of an intellectual family started to bring the world

closer together. “In the late sixteenth century,” Eisenstein maintains, “for

the first time in the history of any civilization, the concept of a Concordia

Mundi was being developed on a truly global scale and the ‘family of

man’ was being extended to encompass all the peoples of the world.”

The hospitality which the printers provided to travelers and intellectuals

helped to make this happen.

The Net continues in this tradition of uniting the world. It is easy to

hold conversations and develop relationships with others from around the

world. The Net speeds this transaction as the conversation is brought from

the print shop into a Netizen’s home. A major advancement which the

personal computer and the Net make possible is accessibility of publish-

ing. Anyone who owns a personal computer can develop and print their

own books, pamphlets, signs, and so forth. The Net comes in to help with

distribution.

Eisenstein talks about one result that standardization of printing

brought about. “One might consider,” she writes, “the emergence of a new

sense of individualism as a by-product of the new forms of standardiza-

tion. The more standardized the type, indeed, the more compelling the

sense of an idiosyncratic personal self.”

Similarly, because Usenet and

mailing lists only present people via their ideas and writing styles, people

have to write the way they want themselves to be viewed. Thus people

develop their own styles. Reading posts can therefore at times be an

enjoyable experience. A famous cartoon printed in the New Yorker

magazine in 1993 show a dog at a computer. He says to another dog, “On

the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog.” In fact, no one knows if you are

white or black, yellow or purple, ugly or beautiful, short or tall. Discrimi-

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nation based on appearance and visual impressions loses its basis. People

can still be verbally harassed if they act stupid, or prove unhelpful to the

Net. One problem, however, which has not yet been solved is harassment

based on user name. For example, women with user names that are clearly

identifiable as a woman’s still receive some attention and sometimes

harassment.

The printing revolution affected both tool making and symbol

manipulation, which led to new ways of thinking. As Eisenstein notes,

“The decisions made by early printers, however, directly affected both tool

making and symbol making. Their products reshaped powers to manipu-

late objects, to perceive and think about varied phenomena.” Computers,

too, are in general directly affecting tool production and symbol manipula-

tion. The tools on the Net are new tools – and thus lead to radical ways of

thinking and dealing with information. People’s thought processes can

expand and develop in original ways. New ways of manipulating

information, such as Unix tools, hypertext media and search engines for

searching distributed data sources foster new means of intellectual

activity.

Printing made consultation of various texts much easier – no longer

did someone have to be able to be a “Wandering Scholar” to gain access

to various information. With the development of the Net, information

access becomes much more varied and widespread. The local public

library, along with libraries around the world, other data banks and know-

ledgeable people are becoming accessible via the Net, for some netusers

even from their homes. Only a few libraries currently offer electronic

access to any of the actual texts of their holdings, but that is rapidly

changing. Undertakings such as Project Gutenberg and various digital

library initiatives are trying to make library resources available from any

computer hooked into the Net.

Both the printing revolution and the Net revolution have been a

catalyst for increased intellectual activity. Such activity tends to provide

pressure for more democracy. When people have the chance and the

means to start thinking, ideas of self-rule appear. Eisenstein describes

how, “Puritan tradesman who had learned to talk to God in the presence

of their apprentices, wives, and children were already on their way to self-

government.”

Many social and political questions are being discussed on

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Usenet newsgroups especially questions like censorship and Net access

which affect the Net directly. Based on these discussions, Netizens are

exerting pressure on their governments to form new democratic structures

like the NTIA on-line conference.

Mass production via printing makes it possible to have sufficient

books so that everyone who wants a copy can borrow one from a library

or buy one. Eisenstein presents Thomas Jefferson’s view of this “democ-

ratizing aspect of the preservative powers of print which secured precious

documents not by putting them under lock and key but by removing them

from chests and duplicating them for all to see.” According to Eisenstein,

“The notion that valuable data could be preserved best by being made

public, rather than being kept secret, ran counter to tradition, led to clashes

with new censors, and was central both to early modern science and to

Enlightenment thought.”

The democratizing power and effect of the

printing revolution, Eisenstein contends, is overlooked in most historical

writings.

With the advent of printing, the Law was affected by the onset of the

ability to duplicate numerous copies of a single document cheaply. People

saw that this capability would be helpful in making the Law available for

the common person to read and understand, and therefore the common

person would be able to watch carefully if it was administered fairly. John

Liburne, a person who lived in England during the Stuart Monarchy felt

that legal documents should be freed from the confines of Latin and old

French so that “every Freeman may read it as well as the lawyers.” People

like him also held that knowledge which had been esoteric, “rare, and

difficult,” should be transformed into a form where it could be useful to

all. Eisenstein also quotes Florio, who made translations and dictionaries

in English. He symbolized the democratic possibilities of the printing

press saying, “Learning cannot be too common and the commoner the

better … . Why but the vulgar should not know all.”

Legal decisions are now being made available on the Net so that

anyone with a computer and modem and net connection will have access

to them. Also there are legal newsgroups on Usenet like misc.legal where

various laws are examined and discussed. This provides a helpful per-

spective for understanding the value of the Net. The culture that is

currently characteristic of the Net supports the principle that much of it

Page 15

should be available openly for the rest of the world to use. There is a

collective communal democratic aspect of it, too. The simple fact of the

matter is that every single person who is connected to the Net and has

Usenet access can make a post to Netnews and every net user can send

electronic mail to any other person who is on-line.

The scribal tradition restricted who made the choice of what was

copied to the Church or those who had substantial property. “As long as

texts could be duplicated only by hand, perpetuation of the classical

heritage rested precariously on the shifting requirements of local elites.”

With the spread of the printing press, the monopoly of these elites was

broken. Netnews is a similar advance over today’s mass media. In the

‘traditional’ forms of mass media, the content is decided by the national

‘elites’. However, on Netnews there is no control over the whole and the

content is contributed to by every single person who is active on the Net.

Eisenstein compares this control of elites over what manuscripts

were copied to the role of the printer and publisher who have it in their

interest to unleash all sorts of books. Eisenstein writes: “The politics of

censorship made [the printers] the natural opponents not only of church

officials but also of lay bureaucrats, regulations and red tape. As independ-

ent agents, they supplied organs of publicity and covert support to a ‘third

force’ that was not affiliated with any one church or one state. This third

force was, however, obviously affiliated with the interests of early modern

capitalists.”

These publishers were “the natural enemy of narrow minds,” and

“encouraged the adoption of a new ethos which was cosmopolitan,

ecumenical, and tolerant without being secular, incredulous or necessarily

Protestant … .”

The Net has offered a parallel encouragement by

providing a new kind of public space separate from either commercial

purposes or religious or political limitations or ideas.

The printing press provided a new way for people to challenge the

status quo. Eisenstein asks the question, “Did printing at first serve

prelates and patricians as a ‘divine art,’ or should one think of it rather as

the ‘poor man’s friend’?”

She answers it might have served in both roles,

but that literacy seemed more “compatible” with the life of a peasant than

that of a noble or lord.

We can pose the same question about the Net. Should one think

Page 16

about the Net as a ‘poor man’s friend’? If we think of the Net as an

alternative to the current media of Television, Radio, and Newspapers and

Magazines – the answer is yes. People who have a lot of money can afford

to own a segment of the mass media described above, and control the

content of that media, whereas the Net is controlled by the mass of people

connected to it, so it is ‘the poor man’s’ version of the mass media.

The printing revolution fostered the spread of education. Books were

used by apprentices and students to learn more than was offered by their

teachers. The Net similarly makes multiple resources available for people

interested in learning. People can access more information resources and,

even more important, other people. This increased accessibility of people

to each other means we can all gain and learn from the interests and

knowledge of others, more so than from any single teacher.

The impact of the new print technology on science was enormous.

Collaboration and cooperation over longer distances were made possible

by the power of print. In particular, Eisenstein refers to the impact on the

science of Astronomy. The change she sees happened within Copernicus’s

lifetime. “Copernicus was not supplied, as Tycho’s successors would be,

with precisely recorded fresh data,” she notes. “But he was supplied, as

Regiomontaus’s successor and Aldus Manutius’s contemporary, with

guidance to technical literature carefully culled from the best Renaissance

Greek manuscript collections, and for the first time, made available

outside library walls.”

The progress of science is much faster because of the speed of

communication afforded by the Net. Articles to be published in scientific

journals are often available as electronic preprints – and thus have wider

distribution earlier than was the norm before the Net. An outstanding

example of this increased speed of scientific activity occurred when

researchers all over the world tried to reproduce the result of the two

University of Utah researchers who had announced that they had achieved

cold fusion. A newsgroup sci.physics.fusion was very quickly set up and

researchers’ questions and results and problems were posted regularly and

feverishly. As a result, what might have taken years to retest and figure out

was sorted out in a three or four month period. The physicists found the

rapid exchange of data and results invigorating and encouraging and felt

they were more productive and sharper in their work because of the Net.

Page 17

Also, they argued that the use of the Net saved much valuable research

time which might have been wasted if the original claims had not been

shown to have been faulty in such a short amount of time and to such a

wide body of scientists.

The invention of the printing press, which led to many developments

not possible before the power of printing, “laid the basis for modern

science … and remains indispensable for humanistic scholarship.”

Eisenstein poignantly claims that printing is responsible for “our museum

without walls.”

As a storehouse of information and living information

contained in other people, the Net could also be seen as a living “museum

without walls.” In her conclusion Eisenstein states that “Cumulative

processes were set in motion in the mid-fifteenth century, and they have

not ceased to gather momentum in the age of the computer printout and

the television guide.”

We, too, are in an age of amazing changes in

communications technologies, and it is important to realize how these

changes are firmly based on the extension of the development of the

printing press which took place in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Notes

1. Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge

University Press, Cambridge, 1993, p. 78.

2. Ibid., p. 12.

3. Ibid., p. 13.

4. Ibid., p. 22.

5. Ibid., p. 45.

6. Ibid., p. 73.

7. Ibid., p. 74.

8. Ibid.

9. See “The Net and the Netizens,” Chapter 1 in Netizens: On the History and Impact of

Usenet and the Internet.

10. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, p. 74.

11. Ibid., p. 75.

12. Ibid., p. 150.

13. Ibid., p. 76.

14. Ibid., p. 77.

15. Ibid., p. 78.

16. Ibid., p. 95.

17. Ibid., p. 56.

Page 18

18. Ibid., p.101.

19. Ibid., p. 45.

20. Ibid., p. 44.

21. Ibid., p. 45.

22. Ibid., p. 223.

23. Ibid., p. 225.

24. Ibid., p. 154.

25. Ibid., p. 157.

26. Ibid., p. 25.

27. Ibid., p. 182.

28. Ibid., p. 56.

29. Ibid., p. 64.

30. Ibid., p. 167.

31. See “The Net and the Future of Politics,” Chapter 13 in Netizens: On the History and

Impact of Usenet and the Internet.

32. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, p. 81.

33. Ibid., Chapter 1, “An Unacknowledged Revolution.”

34. Ibid., p. 165.

35. See “The Computer as Democratizer,” Chapter 18 in Netizens: On the History and

Impact of Usenet and the Internet.

36. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, p. 125.

37. Ibid., p. 178.

38. Ibid., pp. 177-178.

39. Ibid., p. 31.

40. Ibid.

41. Ibid., p. 209.

42. Ibid., p. 275.

43. Ibid., p. 276.

This article can be seen online at:

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/ronda2014

/printing.pdf

[Editor’s Note: The following article appeared online on October 14, 1992, with the title

“James Mill & Usenet News.” A later version appeared as Chapter 18 of Netizens: On the

History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet by Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben

published in 1997 by the IEEE Computer Society, on pages 315-320.]

The Computer as a Democratizer

Page 19

by Michael Hauben

“… only through diversity of opinion is there, in the existing state of

human intellect, a chance of fair play to all sides of the truth.”

John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty”

“In a very real sense, Usenet is a marketplace of ideas.”

Bart Anderson, Bryan Costales,

and Harry Henderson

Political thought has developed as writers presented the theoretical

basis behind the various class structures from aristocracy to democracy.

Plato wrote of the rule of the elite Guardians. Thomas Paine wrote why

people need control of their governments. The computer connects to this

democratizing trend through facilitating wider communications among

individual citizens to the whole body of citizens.

James Mill, the father of John Stuart Mill, takes a look at democracy

in his article “Liberty of the Press” from the 1825 Supplement to the

Encyclopedia Britannica. He writes about the question of a government

that works as it should – for the advantage and gain of the people instead

of the advantage and gain for those in control. Mill sees the government

necessarily being corrupted if the chance exists. Those in the position of

rule, would abuse that power for their advantage. Mill describes, “If one

man saw that he might promote misrule for his own advantage, so would

another; so, of course would they all.” (James Mill, “Liberty of the Press,”

p. 20) Mill says that the people need a check on those in government.

People need to keep watch on their government in order to make sure this

government works in the interest of the many. Mill thus concludes, “There

can be no adequate check without the freedom of the press. The evidence

of this is irresistible.” (Mill, p. 18)

What Mill often phrases as freedom of the press, or liberty of the

press, is more precisely defined as the uncensored press. The uncensored

press provides for the dissemination of information that allows the reader

or thinker to do two things. First, a person can size up the issue and

honestly decide his or her own position. Second, as the press is un-

censored, this person can make his distinctive contribution available for

Page 20

other people to consider and appreciate. Thus what Mill calls “freedom of

the press” makes possible the free flow and exchange of different ideas.

Thomas Paine, in The Rights of Man, describes a fundamental

principle of democracy. Paine writes, “that the right of altering the

government was a national right, and not a right of the government.” (p.

341) Mill also expresses that active participation by the populace is a

necessary principle of democracy. He writes: “Unless a door is left open

to the resistance of the government, in the largest sense of the word, the

doctrine of passive obedience is adopted; and the consequence is, the

universal prevalence of the misgovernment, ensuring the misery and

degradation of the people.” (Mill, p. 13)

Another principle Mill links democracy to, is the right of the people

to define who can responsibly represent their will. However, this right

requires information to make a proper decision. Mill declares: “We may

then ask, if there are any possible means by which the people can make a

good choice, besides liberty of the press? The very foundation of a good

choice is knowledge. The fuller and more perfect the knowledge, the better

the chance, where all sinister interest is absent, of a good choice. How can

the people receive the most perfect knowledge relative to the characters

of those who present themselves to their choice, but by information

conveyed freely, and without reserve, from one to another?” (Mill p. 19)

Without information being available to the people, the candidates for

office can be either as bad as the incumbents or worse. Therefore there is

a need to prevent the government from censoring the information available

to people. Mill explains: “If it is in the power of their rulers to permit one

person and forbid another, the people may be sure that a false report, – a

report calculated to make them believe that they are well governed, when

they are ill-governed, will be often presented to them.” (Mill, p. 20)

After electing their representatives, democracy gives the public the

right to evaluate their chosen representatives in office. The public

continually needs information as to how their chosen representatives are

fulfilling their role. Once these representatives have abused their power,

Paine’s and Mill’s principle allows the public to replace those abusers.

Mill also clarifies that free use of the means of communication is another

extremely important principle: “That an accurate report of what is done by

each of the representatives, a transcript of his speeches, and a statement of

Page 21

his propositions and votes, is necessary to be laid before the people, to

enable them to judge of his conduct, nobody, we presume, will deny. This

requires the use of the cheapest means of communication, and, we add, the

free use of those means. Unless every man has the liberty of publishing the

proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, the people can have no security

that they are fairly published.” (Mill, p. 20)

Ignorance, Thomas Paine calls the absence of knowledge and says

that man with knowledge cannot be returned to a state of ignorance. (The

Rights of Man, p. 357) James Mill shows how the knowledge man thirsts

after leads to a communal feeling. General conformity of opinion seeds

resistance against misgovernment. Both conformity of opinion and

resistance require general information or knowledge. Mill explains: “In all

countries people have either a power legally and peaceably of removing

their governors, or they have not that power. If they have not that power,

they can only obtain very considerable ameliorations of their governments

by resistance, by applying physical force to their rulers, or, at least, by

threats so likely to be followed by performance, as may frighten their

rulers into compliance. But resistance, to have this effect, must be general.

To be general, it must spring from a general conformity of opinion, and a

general knowledge of that conformity. How is this effect to be produced,

but by some means, fully enjoyed by the people of communicating their

sentiments to one another? Unless the people can all meet in general

assembly, there is no other means, known to the world, of attaining this

object, to be compared with freedom of the press.” (Mill, p. 18)

In the previous quote Mill places his championing of the freedom of

press as a realistic alternative to Rousseau’s general assembly, which is

not possible most of the time. Mill expands on the freedom of the press by

setting the rules. An opinion cannot be well founded until its converse is

also present. Here he sets forth the importance of developing your own

opinion from those that exist. Mill writes: “We have then arrived at the

following important conclusions, – that there is no safety to the people in

allowing anybody to choose opinions for them; that there are no marks by

which it can be decided beforehand, what opinions are true and what are

false; that there must, therefore, be equal freedom of declaring all opinions

both true and false; and that, when all opinions, true and false, are equally

declared, the assent of the greater number, when their interests are not

Page 22

opposed to them, may always be expected to be given to the true. These

principles, the foundation of which appears to be impregnable, suffice for

the speedy determination of every practical question.” (Mill, p. 23)

The technology that is the personal computer, international computer

networks, and other recent contributions embody and put into practice

James Mill’s theory of liberty of the press. The personal computer makes

it affordable for most people to have an information access station in their

very own home. There are international computer networks that exist

which allow a person to have debates with other people across the world,

search for data in various data banks, or even play a computer game.

If a person is affiliated with a university community, works at a bus-

iness which pays to connect to the Internet, or pays a special service fee,

he or she can connect to a network of computer networks around the

world. A connection to this international network empowers a person by

giving him access to various services. These services include electronic

mail, which means the ability to send private messages electronically to

people across the world who also have electronic mail boxes. The public

alternative to this is a service called Usenet. This service is an example of

James Mill’s democratic principles.

Usenet consists of many newsgroups which each cover a broad, but

yet specific topic. People who utilize Usenet typically pick certain

newsgroups or topics to focus on. Every group has several items of

discussion going on at the same time. Some examples of newsgroups

include serious topics such as talk.politics.theory, – people “talking” about

current issues and political theory, sci.econ – people discussing the science

of economics, soc.culture.usa – people debating questions of United States

society; and recreational topics (which might also be serious) such as

alt.rock-n-roll – discussing various aspects of rock music, rec.sport.hockey

– a discussion of hockey and rec.humor – jokes and humor. The discus-

sions are very active and provide a source of information that fulfills

James Mill’s criteria for both more oversight over government and a more

informed population. In a sense, what was once impossible, is now

possible; everyone’s letter to the editor is published. (Hauben, Interview

with Staff Member, The Amateur Computerist, vol. 4 no. 2-3, p. 14) What

is important is that Usenet is conducted publicly, and is uncensored. This

means that everyone can both contribute and gain from everyone else’s

Page 23

opinion.

The importance of Usenet also exists in that it is an improvement in

communications technology from that of previous telecommunications.

The predecessors to computer networks were the Ham Radio and Citizen

Band Radio (CB). The computer network is an advance in that it is easier

to store, reproduce and utilize the communications. It is easier to continue

a prolonged question and answer session or debate. The newsgroups on

Usenet have a distribution designation which allows them to be available

to a wide variety of different size areas – local, city, national, or interna-

tional. This allows for a variety of uses. The problem with the Internet is

that in a sense it is only open to those who either have it provided to them

by a university or company that they are affiliated with, or who pay for it.

This limits part of the current development of the computer networks.

An example of a public enterprise, however, is a computer service

called Freenet in Cleveland, Ohio. Freenet is operated by Case Western

Reserve University as a community service. Anyone with a personal

computer and a modem (a device to connect to other computers over exist-

ing phone lines) can call a local phone number to connect to Freenet. If

members of the public do not own computers, they can use Freenet at the

public library. Besides Usenet, Freenet provides free access to a vast

variety of information databases and community information. Freenet is

just one example of the computer networks becoming much more readily

available to broad sectors of society. As part of its databases, Freenet

includes Supreme Court decisions, discussion of political issues and

candidates, and debate over contemporary laws. Freenet is beginning to

exemplify Mill’s principle that democracy requires the “use of the cheap-

est means of communication, and, we add, the free use of those means.”

(Mill, p. 20)

This is an exciting time to see the democratic ideas of some great

political thinkers beginning to be practiced. James Mill wrote that for

government to serve the people, it must be watched by the people utilizing

an uncensored press. Freedom of the press also makes possible the debate

necessary for the forming of well-founded opinions by the people. Usenet

and Freenet are examples of the contemporary electronic practice of the

uncensored accessible press required by Mill. These networks are also the

result of hard work by many people aspiring for more democracy.

Page 24

However, they still require more help from those dedicated to the hard

fight against tyranny.

Bibliography

Anderson, Bart, Bryan Costales, and Harry Henderson, Unix Communications, Indiana,

1991.

Hauben, Michael, “Interview with a Staff Member,” The Amateur Computerist, Vol. 4

No. 2-3.

Mill, James, Essays on Government, Jurisprudence, Liberty of the Press, and Law of

Nations, reprint, Kelley Publishers, New York, 1967.

Mill, John Stuart, “On Liberty” in Three Essays, Oxford, 1975.

Paine, Thomas, “The Rights of Man” in Two Classics of the French Revolution, Anchor

Books, Doubleday. New York, 1989.

Watkins, Beverly T, “Freenet helps Case Western fulfill its Community-Service

Mission,” April 29, 1992, Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A21.

This article is online at:

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben /ronda2014/democratizer.pdf

[Editor’s Note: The following declaration was written as a New Year's message, January

2, 1994 by Michael Hauben. It appears just after page 344 in Netizens: on the History and

Impact of Usenet and the Internet by Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben published in

1 9 9 7 b y t h e I E E E C o mp u t e r S o c i e t y a n d i s o n l i n e a t :

https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/614/535.]

Proposed Declaration of the Rights of

Netizens

We Netizens have begun to put together a Declaration of the Rights

of Netizens and are requesting from other Netizens contributions, ideas,

and suggestions of what rights should be included. Following are some

beginning ideas.

The Declaration of the Rights of Netizens

In recognition that the net represents a revolution in human

Page 25

communications that was built by a cooperative non-commercial process,

the following Declaration of the Rights of the Netizen is presented for

Netizen comment.

As Netizens are those who take responsibility and care for the Net,

the following are proposed to be their rights:

• Universal access at no or low cost.

• Freedom of Electronic Expression to promote the exchange of knowl-

edge without fear of reprisal.

• Uncensored Expression.

• Access to Broad Distribution.

• Universal and Equal access to knowledge and information.

• Consideration of one’s ideas on their merits.

• No limitation of access to read, to post and to otherwise contribute.

• Equal quality of connection.

• Equal time of connection.

• No Official Spokesperson.

• Uphold the public grassroots purpose and participation.

• Volunteer Contribution – no personal profit from the contribution freely

given by others.

Protection of the public purpose from those who would use it for their

private and money making purposes.

The Net is not a Service. It is a Right. It is only valuable when it is

collective and universal. Volunteer effort protects the intellectual and tech-

nological common-wealth that is being created.

DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE NET and NET-

IZENS.

Inspiration from: RFC 3 (1969), Thomas Paine, Declaration of

Independence (1776), Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

(1789), NSF Acceptable Use Policy, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and the

current cry for democracy worldwide.

[Editor’s Note: The following was written in 1995 as a paper for the Columbia University

course “Radical Tradition in America.” It can be seen online at:

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben /ronda2014/sds.txt. The year 2022 marked the 60

Anniversary of the Port Huron Statement which was issued on June 15, 1962.]

Page 26

Participatory Democracy From the

1960s and SDS into the Future On-line

by Michael Hauben

The 1960s was a time of people around the world struggling for

more of a say in the decisions of their society. The emergence of the

personal computer in the late 70s and early 80s and the longer gestation

of the new forms of people-controlled communication facilitated by the

Internet and Usenet in the late 80s and today are the direct descendants of

1960s.

The era of the 1960s was a special time in America. Masses of

people realized their own potential to affect how the world around them

worked. People rose up to protest the ways of society which were out of

their control, whether to fight against racial segregation, or to gain more

power for students in the university setting. The Port Huron Statement

created by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a document

which helped set the mood for the decade.

By the 1970s, some of the people who were directly involved in

student protests continued their efforts to bring power to the people by

developing and spreading computer power in a form accessible and

affordable to individuals. The personal computer movement of the 1970s

created the personal computer. By the mid 1980s they forced the

corporations to produce computers which everyone could afford. The new

communications media of the Internet grew out of the ARPANET research

that started in 1969 and Usenet which was born in 1979. These communi-

cations advances coupled with the availability of computers transforms the

spirit of the 1960s into an achievable goal for our times.

SDS and The Need for Participatory

Democracy

The early members of SDS found a real problem in American

society. They felt that the United States was a democracy that never

existed, or rather which was transformed into a representative system after

the constitutional convention. The United States society is called a

Page 27

democracy, but had ceased being democratic after the early beginnings of

American society. SDS felt it is crucial for people to have a part in how

their society is governed. SDS leaders had an understanding of democratic

forms which did not function democratically in the 1960s nor do they

today. This is a real problem which the leaders and members of SDS

intuitively understood and worked to change.

An important part of the SDS program included the understanding

of the need for a medium to make it possible for a community of active

citizens to discuss and debate the issues affecting their lives. While not

available in the 1960s, such a medium exists today in the 1990s. The seeds

for the revival of the 1960s SDS vision of how to bring about a more

democratic society now exists in the personal computer and the Net. These

seeds will be an important element in the battle for winning control for

people as we approach the new millennium.

The Port Huron Statement and Deep

Problems With American Democracy

The Port Huron Statement was the foundation on which to build a

movement for participatory democracy in the 1960s. In June 1962, an SDS

national convention was held in a UAW camp located in the backwoods

of Port Huron, Michigan. The original text of the Port Huron Statement

was drafted by Tom Hayden, who was then SDS Field Secretary. The

Statement sets out the theory of SDS’s criticism of American society. The

Port Huron convention was itself a concrete living example of the practice

of participatory democracy.

The Port Huron Statement was originally thought of as a manifesto,

but SDS members moved instead to call it a “statement.” It was prefixed

by an introductory note describing how it was to be a document that

should develop and change with experience: “This document represents

the results of several months of writing and discussion among the

membership, a draft paper, and revision by the Students for a Democratic

Society national convention meeting in Port Huron, Michigan, June 11-15,

1962. It is presented as a document with which SDS officially identifies,

but also as a living document open to change with our times and experi-

ences. It is a beginning: in our own debate and education, in our dialogue

Page 28

with society.” (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 329)

This note is important in that it signifies that the SDS document was

not defining the definite solution to the problems of society, but was

making suggestions that would be open to experiences toward a better

understanding. This openness is an important precursor to practicing

participatory democracy by asking for the opinions of everyone and

treating these various opinions equally.

The first serious problem inherent in American society identified by

the Port Huron Statement is the myth of a functioning democracy: “For

Americans concerned with the development of democratic societies, the

anticolonial movements and revolutions in the emerging nations pose

serious problems. We need to face the problems with humility; after 180

years of constitutional government we are still striving for democracy in

our own society.” (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 361)

This lack of democracy in American society contributes to the

political disillusionment of the population. Tom Hayden and SDS were

deeply influenced by the writings of C. Wright Mills, a philosopher who

was a professor at Columbia University until his death early in 1962.

Mills’ thesis was that the “the idea of the community of publics” which

make up a democracy had disappeared as people increasingly got further

away from politics. Mills felt that the disengagement of people from the

State had resulted in control being given to a few who in the 1960s were

no longer valid representatives of the American people. In his book about

SDS, Democracy is in the Streets, James Miller wrote: “Politics became

a spectator sport. The support of voters was marshaled through advertising

campaigns, not direct participation in reasoned debate. A citizen’s chief

sources of political information, the mass media, typically assaulted him

with a barrage of distracting commercial come-ons, feeble entertainments

and hand-me-down glosses on complicated issues.” (Miller, p. 85)

Such fundamental problems with democracy continue today in the

middle of the 1990s. In the Port Huron Statement, SDS was successful in

identifying and understanding the problems which still plague us today.

This is a necessary first step to working toward a solution. The students

involved with SDS understood people were tired of the problems and

wanted to make changes in society. The Port Huron Statement was written

to address these concerns: “… do they not as well produce a yearning to

Page 29

believe there is an alternative to the present that something can be done to

change circumstances in the school, the workplaces, the bureaucracies, the

government? It is to this latter yearning, at once the spark and engine of

change, that we direct our present appeal. The search for a truly demo-

cratic alternatives to the present, and a commitment to social experimenta-

tion with them, is a worthy and fulfilling human enterprise, one which

moves us, and we hope, others today.” (Port Huron Statement in Miller,

p. 331)

Describing how the separation of people from power is the means

used to keep people uninterested and apathetic, the Port Huron Statement

explains: “The apathy is, first, subjective – the felt powerlessness of

ordinary people, the resignation before the enormity of events. But

subjective apathy is encouraged by the objective American situation – the

actual structural separation of people from power, from relevant knowl-

edge, from pinnacles of decision-making. Just as the university influences

the student way of life, so do major social institutions create the circum-

stances which the isolated citizen will try hopelessly to understand the

world and himself.” (“The Society Beyond” in the Port Huron Statement,

in Miller, p. 336)

The Statement analyzes the personal disconnection to society and its

effect: “The very isolation of the individual – from power and community

and ability to aspire – means the rise of democracy without publics. With

the great mass of people structurally remote and psychologically hesitant

with respect to democratic institutions, those institutions themselves

attenuate and become, in the fashion of the vicious cycle, progressively

less accessible to those few who aspire to serious participation in social

affairs. The vital democratic connection between community and

leadership, between the mass and the several elites, has been so wrenched

and perverted that disastrous policies go unchallenged time and again.”

(Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 336)

The Statement describes how it is typical for people to get frustrated

and quit going along with the electoral system as something which works.

The problem has continued, as we now have all time lows in voter

turn-outs for national and local elections. In a section titled “Politics

Without Publics,” the Statement explains: “The American voter is buffeted

from all directions by pseudo problems, by the structurally initiated sense

Page 30

that nothing political is subject to human mastery. Worried by his

mundane problems which never get solved, but constrained by the

common belief that politics is an agonizingly slow accommodation of

views, he quits all pretense of bothering.” (Port Huron Statement in

Miller, p. 337)

Students in SDS did not let these real problems discourage their

efforts to work for a better future. They wanted to be part of the forces to

defeat the problems. The Port Huron Statement contains an understanding

that people are inherently good and can deal with the problems that were

described. This understanding is conveyed in the “Values” section of the

Statement: “Men have unrealized potential for self-cultivation,

self-direction, self-understanding, and creativity. It is this potential that we

regard as crucial and to which we appeal, not to the human potential for

violence, unreason, and submission to authority. The goal of man and

society should be human independence: a concern not with the image of

popularity but with finding a meaning in life that is personally authentic;

a quality of mind not compulsively driven by a sense of powerlessness,

nor one which unthinkingly adopts status values, nor one which represses

all threats to its habits, but one which easily unites the fragmented parts of

personal history, one which openly faces problems which are troubling

and unresolved; one with an intuitive awareness of possibilities, an active

sense of curiosity, an ability and willingness to learn.” (Port Huron

Statement in Miller, p. 332)

Participatory Democracy

Those participating in the Port Huron convention came away with a

sense of the importance of participatory democracy. This sense was in the

air in several ways. The convention itself embodied participatory

democracy through the discussion and debate over the text of the

Statement as several people later explained. The Port Huron Statement

called for the implementation of participatory democracy as a way to bring

people back into decisions about the country in general, and their

individual lives, in particular. One of Tom Hayden’s professors at

University of Michigan, Arnold Kaufman, came to speak about his

thoughts and use of phrase ‘participatory democracy.’

Miller writes that in a 1960 essay, “Participatory Democracy and

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Human Nature,” Kaufman had described a society in which every member

had a “direct responsibility for decisions.” The “main justifying function”

of participatory democracy, quotes Miller, “is and always has been, not the

extent to which it protects or stabilizes a community, but the contribution

it can make to the development of human powers of thought, feeling and

action. In this respect, it differs, and differs quite fundamentally, from a

representative system incorporating all sorts of institutional features

designed to safeguard human rights and ensure social order.” (Miller, p.

94)

“Participation” explained Kaufman, “means both personal initiative

– that men feel obliged to help resolve social problems – and social

opportunity – that society feels obliged to maximize the possibility for

personal initiative to find creative outlets.” (Miller, p. 95)

A participant at the Port Huron Conference, Richard Flacks

remembers Arnold Kaufman speaking at the convention, “At one point, he

declared that our job as citizens was not to role-play the President. Our job

was to put forth our own perspective. That was the real meaning of

democracy – press for your own perspective as you see it, not trying to be

a statesman understanding the big picture.” (Miller, p. 111)

After identifying participatory democracy as the means of how to

wrest control back from corporate and government bureaucracies, the next

step was to identify the means to having participatory democracy. In the

“Values” section of The Port Huron Statement, the means proposed is a

new media that would make this possible: “As a social system we seek the

establishment of a democracy of individual participation governed by two

central aims: that the individual share in those social decisions determin-

ing the quality and direction of his life; the society be organized to

encourage independence in men and provide the media for their common

participation.” (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 333)

Others in SDS further detailed their understandings of participatory

democracy to mean people becoming active and committed to playing

more of a public role. Miller documents Al Haber’s idea of democracy as

‘a model, another way of organizing society.’ The emphasis was on a

charge to action. It was how to be out there doing. Rather than an ideology

or a theory.” (Miller, pp. 143-144)

Tom Hayden, Miller writes, understood participatory democracy to

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mean: “number one, action; we believed in action. We had behind us the

so-called decade of apathy; we were emerging from apathy. What’s the

opposite of apathy? Active participation. Citizenship. Making history.

Secondly, we were very directly influenced by the civil rights movement

in its student phase, which believed that by personally committing yourself

and taking risks, you could enter history and try to change it after a

hundred years of segregation. And so it was this element of participation

in democracy that was important. Voting was not enough. Having a

democracy in which you have an apathetic citizenship, spoon-fed

information by a monolithic media, periodically voting, was very weak,

a declining form of democracy. And we believed, as an end in itself, to

make the human being whole by becoming an actor in history instead of

just a passive object. Not only as an end in itself, but as a means to change,

the idea of participatory democracy was our central focus.” (Miller, p.

144) Another member of SDS, Sharon Jeffrey understood “Participatory”

to mean “involved in decisions.” She continued, “And I definitely wanted

to be involved in decisions that were going to affect me! How could I let

anyone make a decision about me that I wasn’t involved in?” (Miller, p.

144)

It is important to see the value of participatory democracy as a

common understanding among both the leaders and members of SDS.

While the Port Huron Statement contained other criticisms and thoughts,

its major contribution was to highlight the need to more actively involve

the citizens of the United States in the daily political process to correct

some of the wrongs which passivity had allowed to build. Richard Flacks

summarizes this in his article, “On the Uses of Participatory Democracy”:

“The most frequently heard phrase for defining participatory democracy

is that ‘men must share in the decisions which effect their lives.’ In other

words, participatory democrats take seriously a vision of man as citizen:

and by taking seriously such a vision, they seek to extend the conception

of citizenship beyond the conventional political sphere to all institutions.

Other ways of stating the core values are to assert the following: each man

has responsibility for the action of the institutions in which he is embed-

ded … .” (Flacks, pp. 397-398)

The Need for Community for Participatory Democracy

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The leaders of SDS strove to create forms of participatory democ-

racy within its structure and organization as a prototype and as leadership

for the student protest movement and society in general. Al Haber, the

University of Michigan graduate student who was the first SDS national

officer, describes the need for a communication system to provide the

foundation for the movement: “The challenge ahead is to appraise and

evolve radical alternatives to the inadequate society of today, and to

develop an institutionalized communication system that will give

perspective to our immediate actions. We will then have the groundwork

for a radical student movement in America.” (Sale, p. 25)

He understood the general society would be the last place to

approach. There was a need to start smaller among the elements of society

that was becoming more active in the 1960s or the students. Haber

outlined his idea of where to start: “We do not now have such a public

[interaction in a functioning community] in America. Perhaps, among the

students, we are beginning to approach it on the left. It is now the major

task before liberals, radicals, socialists and democrats. It is a task in which

the SDS should play a major role.” (Miller, p. 69)

The Port Huron Statement defines ‘community’ to mean: “Human

relations should involve fraternity and honesty. Human interdependence

is a contemporary fact; … . ‘Personal links between man and man are

needed.’” (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 332)

Prior to his full time involvement with SDS, Hayden wrote an article

for the Michigan Daily describing how democratic decision making is a

necessary first step toward creating community. Hayden’s focus was on

the University when he wrote, “If decisions are the sole work of an

isolated few rather than of a participating many, alienation from the

University complex will emerge, because the University will be just that:

a complex, not a community.” However, this sentiment persisted in

Hayden’s and others thoughts about community and democracy for the

whole country. (Miller, p. 54)

This feeling about community is represented in the Port Huron

Statement’s conclusion. The Statement calls for the communal sharing of

problems to see that they are public and not private problems. Only by

communicating and sharing these problems through a community will it

be a chance to solve them together. SDS called for the new left to “trans-

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form modern complexity into issues that can be understood and felt close--

up by every human being.” The statement continues, “It must give form

to the feelings of helplessness and indifference, so people may see the

political, social an economic sources of their private troubles and organize

to change society … .’” (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 374)

The theory of participatory democracy was engaging. However, the

actual practice of giving everyone a say within the SDS structures made

the value of participatory democracy clear. The Port Huron Convention

was a real life example of how the principles were refreshing and capable

of bringing American citizens back into political process. The community

created among SDS members brought this new spirit to light. C. Wright

Mills writings spoke about “the scattered little circles of face-to-face

citizens discussing their public business.” Al Haber’s hope for this to

happen among students was demonstrated at Port Huron. SDS members

saw this as proof of Mills’ hope for democracy. This was to be the first

example of many among SDS gatherings and meetings. Richard Flacks

highlighted what made Port Huron special. He found a “mutual discovery

of like minds.” Flacks continued, “You felt isolated before, because you

had these political interests and values and suddenly you were discovering

not only like minds, but the possibility of actually creating something to-

gether.” It was also exciting because, “it was our thing: we were there at

the beginning.” (Miller, p. 118)

The Means For Change

SDS succeeded in doing several things. First, they clearly identified

the crucial problem in American democracy. Next, they came up with an

understanding of what theory would make a difference. All that remained

was to find the means to make this change manifest. They discovered how

to create changes in their own lives and these changes affected the world

around them. However, something more was needed to bring change to all

of American society.

Al Haber understood this something more would be an open

communication system or media which people could use to communicate.

He understood that, “the challenge ahead is to appraise and evolve radical

alternatives to the inadequate society of today, and to develop an

institutionalized communication system that will give perspective to our

Page 35

immediate actions.” (Sale, p. 25) This system would lay the “the ground-

work for a radical student movement in America.” (Sale, p. 25) Haber and

Hayden understood SDS to be this, “a national communications network”

(Miller, p. 72)

While many people made their voices heard and produced a real

effect on the world in the 1960s, lasting structural changes were not estab-

lished. The real problems outlined earlier continued in the 1970s and

afterwards. A national, or even an international, public communications

network needed to be built to keep the public’s voice out in the open.

Members of SDS partially understood this, and put forth the

following two points in the Port Huron Statement section on “Toward

American Democracy”:

– “Mechanisms of voluntary association must be created through which

political information can be imparted and political participation encour-

aged.”

– “The allocation of resources must be based on social needs. A truly

‘public sector’ must be established, and its nature debated and planned.”

(Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 362)

International Public Communications

Network – or The Net

This network and the means to access it began developing toward the

end of the 1960s. Two milestones in the genesis were 1969 when the first

ARPANET node was installed and in 1979 when Usenet started. Both are

pioneering experiments in using computers to facilitate human communi-

cation in a fundamentally different way than already existing public

communications networks like the telephone or television networks. The

ARPANET, which was a prototype for today’s Internet, and Usenet, which

continues to grow and expand around the world, are parts of the Net, or the

worldwide global computer communication networks. Another important

step toward the development of an international communication network

was the personal computer movement, which took place in the middle to

late 1970s. This movement created the personal computer which makes it

Page 36

affordable for an individual to purchase the means to connect to this public

network.

However, the network cannot simply be created. SDS understood

that “democracy and freedom do not magically occur, but have roots in

historical experience; they cannot always be demanded for any society at

any time, but must be nurtured and facilitated.” (Port Huron Statement in

Miller, p. 361)

Participants on the ARPANET, Internet and Usenet inherently

understood this, and built a social and knowledge network from the

ground up. As Usenet was created to help students who did not have

access to the ARPANET, or a chance to communicate in a similar way,

they came to it in full force. In “Culture and Communication: The

Interplay in the New Public Commons,” Michael Hauben writes that the

on-line user is part of a global culture and considers him or herself to be

a global citizen. This global citizen is a net citizen, or a Netizen. The

world which has developed is based on communal effort to make a

cooperative community. Those who have become Netizens have gained

more control of their lives and the world around them. However, access

to this world needs to spread in order to have the largest possible effect for

the most number of people. In addition, as some efforts to spread the Net

become more commercial, some of the values important to the Net are

being challenged.

A recent speech I was invited to present at a conference on “the

Netizen Revolution and the Regional Information Infrastructure” in

Beppu, Japan helps to bring the world of the Netizen into perspective with

the ideas of participatory democracy: “Netizens are not just anyone who

comes on-line, and they are especially not people who come on-line for

isolated gain or profit. They are not people who come to the Net thinking

it is a service. Rather they are people who understand it takes effort and

action on each and every ones part to make the Net a regenerative and

vibrant community and resource. Netizens are people who decide to

devote time and effort into making the Net, this new part of our world, a

better place.” (Hauben, Hypernetwork '95 speech)

The Net is a technological and social development which is in the

spirit of the theory clearly defined by the Students for a Democratic

Society. This understanding could help in the fight to keep the Net a

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uncommercialized public commons (Felsenstein). This many to many

medium provides the tools necessary to bring the open commons needed

to make participatory democracy a reality. It is important now to spread

access to this medium to all who understand they could benefit.

The Net brings power to people’s lives because it is a public forum.

The airing of real problems and concerns in the open brings help toward

the solution and makes those responsible accountable to the general

public. The Net is the public distribution of people’s muckraking and

whistle blowing. It is also just a damn good way for people to come

together to communicate about common interests and to come into contact

with people with similar and differing ideas.

The lack of control over the events surrounding an individual’s life

was a common concern of protesters in the 1960s. The Port Huron

Statement gave this as a reason for the reforms SDS was calling for. The

section titled “The Society Beyond” included that “Americans are in

withdrawal from public life, from any collective efforts at directing their

own affairs.” (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 335)

Hayden echoed C. Wright Mills when he wrote, “What experience

we have is our own, not vicarious or inherited.” Hayden continued, “We

keep believing that people need to control, or try to control, their work and

their life. Otherwise, they are without intensity, without the subjective cre-

ative consciousness of themselves which is the root of free and secure

feeling. It may be too much to believe, we don’t know.” (Miller, p. 262)

The desire to bring more control into people’s daily life was a

common goal of student protest in the 1960s. Mario Savio, active in the

Berkeley Free Speech movement, “believed that the students, who paid the

university to educate them, should have the power to influence decisions

concerning their university lives.” (Haskins and Benson, p. 55) This desire

was also a common motivator of the personal computer movement.

The Personal Computer Movement

The personal computer movement immediately picked up after the

protest movements of the 1960s died down. Hobbyist computer enthusi-

asts wanted to provide access to computing power to the people. People

across the United States picked up circuit boards and worked on making

a personal minicomputer or mainframe which previously only large

Page 38

corporations and educational institutions could afford. Magazines, such as

Creative Computing, Byte and Dr. Dobbs’ Journal, and clubs, such as the

Homebrew Club, formed cooperative communities of people working

toward solving the technical problems of building a personal and

inexpensive computer.

Several pioneers of the personal computer movement contributed to

the tenth anniversary issue of Creative Computing Magazine. Some of

their impressions follow: “The people involved were people with vision,

people who stubbornly clung to the idea that the computers could offer

individuals advantages previously available only to large corporations …

.” (Leyland, p. 111) “Computer power was meant for the people. In the

early 70s computer cults were being formed across the country. Sol Libes

on the East Coast and Gordon French in the West were organizing

computer enthusiasts into clubs … .” (Terrell, p. 100) “We didn’t have

many things you take for granted today, but we did have a feeling of

excitement and adventure. A feeling that we were the pioneers in a new

era in which small computers would free everyone from much of the

drudgery of everyday life. A feeling that we were secretly taking control

of information and power jealously guarded by the Fortune 500 owners of

multimillion dollar IBM mainframes. A feeling that the world would never

be the same once ‘hobby computers’ really caught on.” (Marsh, p. 110)

“There was a strong feeling [at the Homebrew Club] that we were

subversives. We were subverting the way the giant corporations had run

things. We were upsetting the establishment, forcing our mores into the

industry. I was amazed that we could continue to meet without people

arriving with bayonets to arrest the lot of us.”

The Net and Conclusion

The development of the Internet and of Usenet is an investment in

a strong force toward making direct democracy a reality. These new

technologies present the chance to overcome the obstacles preventing the

implementation of direct democracy. Online communication forums also

make possible the discussion necessary to identify today’s fundamental

questions. One criticism is that it would be impossible to assemble the

body politic in person at a single time. The Net allows for a meeting which

takes place on each person’s own time, rather than all at one time. Usenet

Page 39

newsgroups are discussion forums where questions are raised, and people

can leave comments when convenient, rather than at a particular time and

at a particular place. As a computer discussion forum, individuals can

connect from their own computers, or from publicly accessible computers

across the nation to participate in a particular debate. The discussion takes

place in one concrete time and place, while the discussants can be

dispersed. Current Usenet newsgroups and mailing lists prove that citizens

can both do their daily jobs and participate in discussions that interest

them within their daily schedules.

Another criticism was that people would not be able to communicate

peacefully after assembling. Online discussions do not have the same

characteristics as in-person meetings. As people connect to the discussion

forum when they wish, and when they have time, they can be thoughtful

in their responses to the discussion. Whereas in a traditional meeting,

participants have to think quickly to respond. In addition, online discus-

sions allow everyone to have a say, whereas finite length meetings only

allow a certain number of people to have their say. Online meetings allow

everyone to contribute their thoughts in a message, which is then

accessible to whomever else is reading and participating in the discussion.

These new communication technologies hold the potential for the

implementation of direct democracy in a country as long as the necessary

computer and communications infrastructure are installed. Future

advancement toward a more responsible government is possible with these

new technologies. While the future is discussed and planned for, it will

also be possible to use these technologies to assist in the citizen participa-

tion in government. Netizens are watching various government institutions

on various newsgroups and mailing lists throughout the global computer

communications network. People’s thoughts about and criticisms of their

respective governments are being aired on the currently uncensored

networks.

These networks can revitalize the concept of a democratic “Town

Meeting” via online communication and discussion. Discussions involve

people interacting with others. Voting involves the isolated thoughts of an

individual on an issue, and then his or her acting on those thoughts in a

private vote. In society where people live together, it is important for

people to communicate with each other about their situations to best

Page 40

understand the world from the broadest possible viewpoint.

The individuals involved with SDS, the personal computer move-

ment and the pioneers involved with the development of the Net under-

stood they were a part of history. This spirit helped them to push forward

in the hard struggle needed to bring the movements to fruition. The

invention of the personal computer was one step that made it possible for

people to afford the means to connect to the Net. The Internet has just

begun to emerge as a tool available to the public. It is important that the

combination of the personal computer and the Net be spread and made

widely available at low or no costs to people around the world. It is

important to understand the tradition which these developments have come

from, in order to truly understand their value to society and to make them

widely available. With the hope connected to this new public communica-

tions medium, I encourage people to take up the struggle which continues

in the great American radical tradition.

Bibliography

Felsenstein, Lee. “The Commons of Information.” In Dr. Dobbs’ Journal. May 1993

Flacks, Richard. “On the Uses of Participatory Democracy.” In Dissent. No. 13.

November 1966. Pp. 701-708. Reprinted in The American Left. Edited by Loren

Baritz. Pp. 397-405.

Freiberger, Paul and Michael Swaine. Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal

Computer. Osborne/McGraw-Hill. Berkeley. 1984.

Haskins, James and Kathleen Benson. The 60s Reader. Viking Kestrel. New York. 1988.

Hauben, Michael. “Culture and Communication: The interplay in the new public

commons – Usenet and Community”. Online in 1995.

http://www.columbia.edu

/~hauben/CS /usenet-culture.txt

Hauben, Michael and Ronda Hauben. Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and

the Internet. 1994. http://www .columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/

Hauben, Michael. “Netizens and Community Networks.” Presentation at the Hypernet-

work '95, Beppu Bay Conference. November 24, 1995. Beppu Bay, Oita

Prefecture, Japan.

Leyland, Diane Asher. “As We Were.” In Creative Computing. Vol. 10 no. 11. November

1984. Pp. 111-112.

Marsh, Robert. “1975: Ancient History.” In Creative Computing. Vol. 10 no. 11.

November 1984. Pp. 108-110.

Miller, James. Democracy is in the Streets. Simon and Schuster. New York. 1987.

Sale, Kirkpatrick. SDS. Vintage Books. New York, 1974.

SDS. Port Huron Statement. As found in Miller. Pp. 329-374.

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Terrell, Paul. “A Guided Tour of Personal Computing.” In Creative Computing. Vol. 10

no. 11. November 1984. Pp. 100-104.

This article is online at: http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben /CS/netdemocracy-60s.txt

EDITORIAL STAFF

Ronda Hauben

William Rohler

Norman O. Thompson

Michael Hauben (1973-2001)

Jay Hauben

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