Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 303.4833
EAN: 9780385522656
ISBN: 0385522657
Label: Spiegel & Grau
Manufacturer: Spiegel & Grau
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 192
Publication Date: 2008-01-22
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Release Date: 2008-01-22
Studio: Spiegel & Grau

From the author hailed by the New York Times Book Review for his “drive-by brilliance” and dubbed by the New York Times Magazine as “one of the country’s most eloquent and acid-tongued critics” comes a ruthless challenge to the conventional wisdom about the most consequential cultural development of our time: the Internet.

Of course the Internet is not one thing or another; if anything, its boosters claim, the Web is everything at once. It’s become not only our primary medium for communication and information but also the place we go to shop, to play, to debate, to find love. Lee Siegel argues that our ever-deepening immersion in life online doesn’t just reshape the ordinary rhythms of our days; it also reshapes our minds and culture, in ways with which we haven’t yet reckoned. The web and its cultural correlatives and by-products—such as the dominance of reality television and the rise of the “bourgeois bohemian”—have turned privacy into performance, play into commerce, and confused “self-expression” with art. And even as technology gurus ply their trade using the language of freedom and democracy, we cede more and more control of our freedom and individuality to the needs of the machine—that confluence of business and technology whose boundaries now stretch to encompass almost all human activity.

Siegel’s argument isn’t a Luddite intervention against the Internet itself but rather a bracing appeal for us to contend with how it is transforming us all. Dazzlingly erudite, full of startlingly original insights, and buoyed by sharp wit, Against the Machine will force you to see our culture—for better and worse—in an entirely new way.

Customer Rating:
Summary: This book is so good
Comment: This book is so good. Siegel is one of the few writers who aren't caught up with all of the hype of Google and Web 2.0. What's popular isn't always what's right and Siegel is right.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great message, but could have been covered in one essay or column.
Comment: He sold me on the book doing some great interviews while promoting it. Good guy, definitely has the right idea. But the book just seems to be repetitive.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Every tool can be good or bad -- it depends on whose hands are using it
Comment: I saw an ad for this book in the NYT Sunday Book Review and the subject immediately captivated my attention. Working for a large technology company with a job driving digital marketing strategy, the topic of some of the negative consequences of the internet is a topic worth discussing. I feel that several of Siegel's core arguments are very fair, reasonable and have a great degree of accuracy. However, I don't believe he is all that effective going beyond the surface area of his arguments.

In some sense, based on Siegel's premise that anyone who has anything the least bit critical about the internet is marginalized and the mainstream press is unwilling to genuinely to engage in anything but the internet is only good, it is not surprising that he screams pretty loudly some of his opinions. He frankly doesn't believe anyone will listen unless someone is loud and bold.

I certainly do agree with some of his core sentiments, noted by another reviewer: "where the rhetoric of democracy, freedom, and access is often a fig leaf for antidemocratic and coercive rhetoric; where commercial ambitions dress up in the sheep's clothing of humanistic values; and were, ironically, technology has turned back the clock from disinterested enjoyment of high and popular art to a primitive culture of crude, grasping self-interest." Much of the above is a good characterization of an enormous amount of content on the web in such large reach places like YouTube and Wikipedia, to the mass of blogs that proliferate. Is the ability of people to communicate, collaborate and share information across boundaries powerful and beneficial? Certainly. Does someone putting a camera on some form of America's Funniest Home Video and posting it on the web make it good? More beneficial and less inane to society than it being shown on TV because it is the internet? Hardly.
Do the most ardent supporters of Wikipedia really believe it is apolitical and not censored -- the same criticism they level at mainstream media and profess the web is above. Definitely no. Does this make the web bad? No.

Yes, the web may be the most profound tool unleashed on humanity since the printing press. Certainly it has, is and will have a profoundly positive impact on people and the world for generations to come. However, this does not mean that the changes unleashed are only positive or there has, is and will be a vocal group of individuals that lead this "coercive and anti-democratic rhetoric" to suppress those who question the "all is good" mentality.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: The Great Digital Unwashed
Comment: This book, as the title suggests, is about the negative and destructive aspects of the Internet. Many of us, even true believers, have always felt instinctively that it was not all good. From the outset it should be noted that cultural critic Lee Siegel is keenly aware of its power. He writes that "the Internet is possibly the most radical transformation of private and public life in the history of humankind." He likens the Internet to the automobile in the 1950's in that it is considered a symbol and an instrument of "freedom, democracy, choice, and access." It was not until the 1960's that the shortcomings and the dangers of the automobile were exposed by Ralph Nadar. Lee Siegel has taken it upon himself to be the Ralph Nadar of the Internet. Although we've heard many of his arguments before, he delivers them with a certain anger, a "rage against the machine."

Siegel opens his discussion with a scene in Starbucks where everyone is sitting speechless - if not on cellphone - in front of their laptops. Everyone is trying to achieve "connectivity" with the World Wide Web. What Siegel sees is disconnectedness and isolation. Social-networking sites, for example, are a contradiction in terms. They are asocial and atomizing. How can members of Facebook and MySpace have thousands of "friends." What are the consequences for real friendships? Siegel asks all the pertinent questions, even though he doesn't have all the answers.

Siegel has a special axe to grind with Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point. He charges that Gladwell has made popularity the sole criterion for success. The Internet is keeping us at the level of high school, where popularity or "page views" is more important than originality or creativity. Webheads strive to be more like everyone else than anyone else. He cites "American Idol" as another example of contemporary mindlessness. The most successful performers are the best imitators.

Siegel wonders what effect 50,000 new blogs daily (presumably this one included) has on our culture. With the shear volume of information, knowledge becomes elusive. It becomes more difficult to separate rumor from truth. Reality shows are staged, some documentaries are staged, how long before the news is staged? Siegel argues that the blogosphere has a deteriorating effect on "fairness, honesty, and accuracy." Webheads will find that many of his arguments are difficult to refute.

As a professional journalist, Siegel laments the disappearance of the editorial standards of traditional print media, even though they too were imperfect. He also denounces the superficial freedom and democracy that the blogosphere claims for itself. Although his sentiments ring true, there is nothing that can or should be done about the electronic mob from above. Cultural gatekeepers are a thing of the past. We can only hope that the great digital unwashed can sort things out from the bottom up, and that truth and justice prevail.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: What makes him an expert?
Comment: The author is bothered by the ability of web users to express opinions without being "recognized" experts. This does not prevent him from expression opinions without any apparent experience in philosophy, psychology or cultural evolution. From my 25 years in the computer business and an MA in psychology, I don't take much stock in his opinions. A publisher felt otherwise and made a gamble that people would also be interested. By no means am I claiming that the author does not have the right to publish his opinions or that people have the right to agree or disagree. I picked out two or three of the points as worth discussion at some other place. I'm temped to resell the book and recover some of my money. But I guess I'll add it to my library under "Smoke" as in "full of"... Oh yes, other than the books and people he ravages (The book is for profit, after all.) there are no references to other experts or studies. He likes "some," "most," and "many" when making his sweeping claims.

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