Dreyfus on the Outside Julianne
Dreyfus on the Outside
Julianne Chatelain recommends a fascinating review by Geert Lovink of Hubert Dreyfus’ brief (136pp) book “On the Internet.”
Dreyfus is best known in the computing community for his classic “What Computers Cannot Do,” a book that applied the insights of Heidegger to the question of AI. I’ve always loved that book because it critiques AI from the right standpoint (IMO) – its implicit assumptions about consciousness – much as Andy Clark’s much more recent “Being There” does. I know Dreyfus, however, primarily for his Heideggerian scholarship and even once brought him in as a guest lecturer at a college at which I taught.
I haven’t read his new book. I only heard about it through Lovink through Chatelain. But the review is hefty and substantial. Based on it, it sounds like Dreyfus has chosen a dyspeptic stance towards the Net that in some ways mirrors my own mindlessly optimistic view. Says Lovink:
Dreyfus develops his version of ‘net criticism’ in four different fields:
the limitations of hyperlinks and the loss of the ability of to recognize relevance;
the dream of distance learning (no skills without presence);
the absence of telepresence
and a chapter on ‘anonymity and nihilism,’ leading to a life without meaning.
Lovink quotes the following:
“Thanks to hyperlinks, meaningful differences have been leveled. Relevance and significance have disappeared. And this is an important part of the attraction to the web. Nothing is too trivial to be included. Nothing is so important that it demands a special place.” (p.79)
and replies “There is no mention here of users and groups creating their own meaning and context on the Net. Dreyfus apparently never heard of mail and web filters.” Lovink astutely connects this fear of the rabble to its roots in the authoritarian impulse.
All I’d add, not having read the book, is that Dreyfus’ rant is the complaint of the outsider, the one who is refusing to enter the fray because he might get grass stains on his new pants. Merely browsing from site to site, chat to chat, the participants look like gibbering baboons. Enter into the discussion and you now find the conversations that matter to you, that expand your thought. In short, Dreyfus is making the dry fuss of a crotchety old man, yelling at the kids to turn down that racket, stop gabbing, and go to bed.
Jump in, Hubert. We need you. And, although you don’t know it, you need us.
Categories: Uncategorized dw
I think Weingerger is taking a cheap shot at Dreyfus’ On The Internet.
If you don’t get his earlier books or his work and interpretation of Heidegger, you won’t get his On The Internet.
Shortness doesn’t mean lack of content. It simply means that more preparation is necessary.
I refer the reader to some of my Weblogs on the book.
Masood, first, I like what you say in the blog entries. Thanks for the links.
Second, my comments were explicitly based not on the book but on a review of the book, which is more like “shoddy” than “cheap shot.” But I read the book shortly afterwards and was quite disappointed with it and agree with Lovink’s review. Dreyfus is missing the point, like a monarchist complaining that democracy is going to give the vote to unqualified people.
As for not being able to understand Dreyfus without understanding what he’s written about Heidegger: Dreyfus’ writings on Heidegger influenced my doctoral dissertation on the ol’ Nazi, and I consider “What Computers Can’t Do” to be the single most important critique of AI. In fact, I brought Dreyfus in as the Founders Day speaker at the college I used to teach at. So, have I passed the Reader Qualification Exam required before one may read his Internet book? (I actually think Dreyfus is a better writer than you do; his Internet book is, IMO, perfectly understandable even to those who don’t know Heidegger or Dreyfus’ previous work.)
You seem to have non-philosophical bias against Heidegger. In any case, Kierkegaard is just as central to Dreyfus’ critique. I still think Dreyfus’ got it right in his On The Internet. I don’t think it is a matter of a monarchist vs. a democrat. His Kierkegaardian critique has nothing to do with that. What he’s saying is that because everyone gets to hear about everything that doesn’t even remotely fall into the local context of their lives, responsibility, commitment and trust evaporate and people are “lost”. Dreyfus’ concludes the book with an analysis of limited benefits of the Internet and circumstances that are necessary to make it more effective.
Masood, H was the largest influence on my thinking, but I do think his Nazism and anti-Semitism affected his thought.
As for Dreyfus, thank you. I agree with your summary. I just think that he’s overall wrong. He is describing the experience from a standpoint that doesn’t appreciate the Net. (I was using the monarchist example as a metaphor, not saying that D is a monarchist.)