[ih] New Republic Article - "How We Misremember the Internet’s Origins"

Eric Gade eric.gade at gmail.com
Fri Nov 1 12:35:50 PDT 2019


The very general idea of the article is correct: one can and should take
political, economic, and cultural forces into consideration when writing
the history of any technology. What is bizarre about this article is that
the author is only saying that this is so, implying that no one has done
this for the history of the Internet (I guess?) while offering no original
analysis in its place. So it's not really saying much in itself.

Regarding the influence of the counterculture (the "hippie" angle), this
has already been tackled for the more general history of computing by the
likes of Fred Turner and John Markoff.


> Um, meaningless drivel from someone with a liberal arts degree?
>

This list is presumably a conversation about history (one of the liberal
arts), correct?

On Fri, Nov 1, 2019 at 3:19 PM Lori Emerson <lori.emerson at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all, I've enjoyed having the chance to be a lurker on this list for
> awhile and I've learned a lot. I also appreciate that you all might have
> different views on Ingrid Burrington's think piece, but I can't imagine
> that veering into ad hominem attacks on the worth of her degree is
> considered part of productive discussion on this list.
>
> best, Lori
>
> On Fri, Nov 1, 2019 at 1:15 PM Brian E Carpenter <
> brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> "But when the publicly funded open protocols and infrastructure built by
>> ARPANET entered the Californian crucible of nascent ex-hippie
>> neoliberalism, the windows of possibility narrow."
>>
>> Um, meaningless drivel from someone with a liberal arts degree?
>>
>> Neoliberalism didn't *actually* arise from hippiedom; it arose from rich
>> people endorsing a particular stream of thought in academic economics. You
>> might as well say that the Postel principle arose from hippiedom, since Jon
>> had long hair. It would make as much sense IMNSHO.
>>
>> Regards
>>    Brian Carpenter
>> --
>> Internet-history mailing list
>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>>
>
>
> --
> Lori Emerson
> Associate Professor | Director, Media Archaeology Lab
> Department of English and Intermedia Arts, Writing, and Performance
> University of Colorado at Boulder
> Hellems 101, 226 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0226
> traditional territories of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute Nations
> loriemerson.net | mediaarchaeologylab.com
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>


-- 
Eric
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