Electric Dreams (Book Review)

History isn't always written by the winners.




Usually, books with a historical theme have a habit of being quite dull.

Often these books are revisionist texts drawing on multiple references to build a single argument: references the author agrees with and references that they feel they can shoot down.

Or alternatively, the author tries to cover every possible aspect, view and detail that the reader gets bogged down in tedium. (See Peter Ackroyd's books on London and the Thames for a good example of detail obsession)

This book didn't look too promising at first glance:

* it is about 'computers' - I really didn't want to read about the development of fortran and cobal
* it is about computers in 'American' culture - I'm generally very sceptical of American-focused stuff
* there didn't appear to be too many pictures

But I loved this book.

Computers represent the ultimate dialectic of capitalism. They represent power and control, yet they also represent liberation and grass roots activism. Individualism and collectivism. Technology allows for the concentration of the means of production in the hand of the few (think of the use of computers in the City), yet also allows people to connect and share ideas that undermine the very fabric of capitalism. (think terrorist operations and the dispersed yet effective organisation of anti-capitalist action).

This book is wonderful, not only in that it got me thinking about a whole host of dialectic observations (!), but primarily because of how it considers its topic:

It's a cultural reading. Rather than reviewing academic texts or considering primary and secondary sources of consumer research, the author looks at how 'cultural texts' are produced within and without the system. He considers the way in which these texts demonstrate how computers affect and are affected in American culture

What does that mean in English?!!

Well Ted Friedman (the author) has a look at a bunch of letters, films, magazines, games, TV programmes, adverts, websites to see how computers and stories / mythologies surrounding computers' roles are represented.

So we get a look at the films 'the Desk Set', '2001', 'Matrix'. We look at Wired & the Wall Street Journal. We look at Apple's 1984 ad and IBM communications. We look at cyberpunk literature (eg. William Gibson and Kurt Vonneget. We look at Civilisation and Sim City as 'God' games. We look at flash mobs and blogs.

It's a very diverse and informative read, picking up and picking apart multiple threads. (Although it can be a little heavy going in places). Moreover, it takes a potentially turgid topic and litters it with interest.

What's particularly refreshing, is he tries to consider diametrically opposite views (i.e. technology as a good thing vs. technology as a bad thing). And by considering texts produced at a point in time (historical materialism), he avoid too much revisionist thinking.

It reminded me of Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins (another very excellent book). Jenkins also looks at culture to consider changes in the world of media and entertainment. (His texts being The Matrix, American Idol, Star Wars, and Harry Potter amongst others)

Actually, check out Jenkins' blog if you have a spare few hours (pithy, he is not)

But anyway, back to Electric Dreams...

There is no central argument per se, although Friedman is certainly of the view that technology is a great liberator rather than something that should be suppressed and controlled. He is in the optimism camp, where all possible worlds should be dreamed and imagined and can be fulfilled by technology. The language he uses gives him away as someone who has been trained in Marxist ideology and one who believes in a lot of it.

But hell, this blog isn't called commune for nothing...