We've managed to take some very important and very consequential actions in the past seven years. They may not have been wise actions, but we're not wise; we're just blundering about and doing the best we can. And what was the upshot? Basically, we've bet the farm on the digital imperative.
In the year 1996, everything aspires to the condition of software. Art, politics, music, money, words-in-a-row, even sex wants to be digital and on a network. Everything aspires to the nebulous and liquid quality of moving digital information. We're getting used to this prospect in 1996. We can spare ourselves the exhilarating sense of hysteria that this new reality provokes. We should seize this chance to get a little mental oxygen. We'll need it.
The year 1996 is nicely poised between the world-shattering events of 1989 and the onrushing specter of the year 2000. The planet is still visibly recovering from 1989, the year the cold war ended, and maybe the first year in which computer networks came creeping out of technical obscurity to seriously menace the status quo. Unless I miss my guess, the year 2000 will also be a truly extraordinary historical moment. The year 2000 will be an excellent opportunity to deny and dispose of the deeply repugnant twentieth century. In the year 2000 there will be a general erasing of the memory banks, a bitter scorn for the hopelessly outdated, a firm and somewhat frantic rejection of a great deal of cultural baggage. Like most New Year's Parties, it'll feel so good that none of us will be able to resist. In the year 2000, we'll all be engaged in a general frenzy of bright-eyed denial.
So there's not much point in raising the black flag and rushing the barricades in 1996. That's always a natural temptation, but we might be better advised to