Thermidorian reaction
Saturday, for those who keep an eye on such things, was 9 Thermidor 216 in the French Republican calendar, and the 214th anniversary of the moderate revolution that overthrew Robespierre and the Jacobins, ending the Reign of Terror.
E-democracy and online politics has had its own Thermidorian Reaction in recent years, where wild hyperbole about the Internet’s consequences for democracy has calmed down, and a more sceptical view has prevailed. Rather than the glorious future of democracy, the current argument runs, perhaps the Internet is actually a threat to civility, or even world peace (this is the argument of a piece in this week’s Economist).
In many ways, the hard-nosed attitude to internet democracy is a necessary correction to the irrational exuberance of the ’90s. Many of the criticisms of current online debate are accurate - I’ve made some here myself - and there are certainly serious problems with the spread of wild conspiracy theories and rumours online.
I would be sorry, though, to lose every part of the old Jacobin spirit in our thinking about internet democracy. For all the blogwars and bloviating, the Net has a unique capability to join people together across geographical divides. They may be joined together in a mad conspiracy theory, but they may equally be engaged in a thoughtful discussion - it’s the responsibility of all of us to discourage the first and encourage the second.
If we give people the tools and the confidence to think rationally, and get online and offline discussions to support each other, I think we can achieve the stronger, broader ‘politically-active’ class that we looked for in the past.
In fact, with broadband penetration rates rising (hi, Mum!), and kids who have grown up with the Internet getting towards voting age, today’s opportunities are probably greater than those of the age of hyperbole. Sí se puede, to coin a phrase, as long as we retain the spark of that first big, revolutionary idea.