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cant, that the computer is responsible for our nation's very strong econ–
omy and for the "smart bombs" (talk about a contradiction in terms!)
that have turned us into (selective) policemen of the world. To imagine
our computers "down" and dysfunctional reminds me of nothing so
much as those ex-Marxists who contributed to a collection entitled
The
God That Failed.
Is it possible, I wonder, that romancing the chip might
lead to a similar despair?
"Not so," I can imagine many muttering. The computer chip has
made much possible, but as they used to say in vaudeville, "you ain't
seen nuthin' yet!"
If
a person is casting about for an equivalent to
Adams's dynamo, he or she need go no further than the Internet, the
most powerful source of information the world has come up with
thus far. One would have to be a curmudgeon of the first rank to toss
cold water at the oceans of material that can be called up by a simple
double-click of the mouse. Fortunately, there are any number of such
curmudgeons in the house, including some who put the kibosh on the
Internet's ancestors . "I know too much already," detective maven
Raymond Chandler once observed, and he went on to make this star–
tling assertion: "I would be happier knowing less." Eyeballing these
words, Joseph Epstein, a cultural scold of the first water, could hardly
contain his enthusiastic agreement: "We read certain writers for those
moments when they tell us what in our hearts we already know, but
for one reason or another, haven't managed to formulate for our–
selves. This was such a moment for me." It is also high praise of the
sort that Epstein parcels out very sparingly.
At issue is information overload, a phenomenon that poor Chandler,
pecking away on his typewriter, only felt in its intimations. He did not
live long enough to see the full blossoming of search engines and data–
bases. Nonetheless, even in his day people were drowning in too many
books, too many magazines, too many claims on our limited time and
attention spans. Rather like a person held captive at a party by a dis–
traught friend all too willing to share the intimate details of his or her
impending divorce, I often think that what the information highway
most needs is a rest stop. Do I really need to pop into every chat room
with available seating or check up on the latest tell-all book being ped–
dled by Amazon.com? Whatever happened, I wonder, to the leisurely
conversations of yesterday, the ones conducted everywhere from Green–
wich Village espresso bars to old-fashioned suburban coffee klatches?
Gone (some would say "sacrificed") into the mighty maw of the Inter–
net. Today, urban coffee shops on the cutting edge boast that they are
fully wired and that patrons can slurp down lattes as they surf the Net.
