Book People Archive

Re; Thoughts on the Internet's Founding Myths

Sam Vaknin writes:

>For a self-styled nonconformist medium, the 
>Internet is the reification of herd mentality.
>Actually, it is founded on the rather explicit belief in the implicit wisdom 
>of the masses. This particularly pernicious strong version of egalitarianism 
>postulates that veracity, accuracy, and truth are emergent phenomena, the 
>inevitable and, therefore, guaranteed outcome of multiple interactions 
>between users.

I highly doubt the designers of the ARPAnet in the 1960s and the early
1970s had these as "explicit beliefs", but even if we replace "The internet"
with "online many-to-many comunication culture", the generalization is still
false.  I *would* consider it a widely held tenet that making room for
"the masses" makes it more feasible to discover wisdom and truth online
than limiting access or voice to the "elite" would.  This is not the
same thing as saying "the masses" are inherently wise, or that one
source is as good as any other, or even that "the masses" should always
be heard unmediated.  I'll leave discernment of the differences
between these various statements as exercises for the reader.

The Eichmann example is actually rather telling for the tenet I give above,
for reasons that you might not initially expect:

> One can ever "contribute" to an online "encyclopedia", the Wikipedia, 
> without the slightest acquaintance the topic one is "editing". Consequently, 
> the other day, I discovered, to my utter shock, that Eichmann changed his 
> name, posthumously, to Otto. It used to be Karl Adolf, at least until he was 
> executed in 1962.

Of course, Wikipedia didn't say anything about Eichmann "posthumously
changing his name".  For a while, though, it did give his full name
as "Otto Adolf Eichmann".   Checking his article just now, I see the main
article has had the name changed back to "Karl Adolf Eichmann", which
is also what Britannica Online and various other secondary and tertiary
sources give.  And which is also quite likely wrong.

Not that you'd know that if you just consulted the "elite" authorities
like Britannica, which just says "in full: Karl Adolf Eichmann" and leaves
it at that.  But when I look at the Wikipedia article, I can instantly
see from looking at the History and Discussion pages (which experienced
Wikipedia users know to always check before they believe or revise articles)
that there's some uncertainty and controversy over Eichmann's original
full name.   The History page has an indignant "His name was KARL, not
OTTO!" from a few days ago.  And the Discussion page has some entries
from March explaining the difficulty, including this quote:

  The recent edit is correct: his name was Otto Adolf Eichmann. The
  previous version "Karl Adolf Eichmann" was probably a confusion for
  his father's name "Adolf Karl Eichmann". His trial report [cite] says that
  this information came from Eichmann himself.

Following the cite, which leads to a painstakingly compiled transcription
of the Eichmann trial documents from the widely-respected Nizkor website,
I see that indeed some of the reports say that by his own testimony
he was "Otto Adolf Eichmann".  (The Eichmann trial judgments themselves
don't get this specific, simply referring to "Adolf Eichmann"; the
Library of Congress Authorities likewise have his name as simply
"Eichmann, Adolf, 1906-1962".)

Are these trial reports just an anomaly?   To check, I go over to the library
to find what biographies are there for Eichmann.  The most recent one,
and the English-language book that seems to go into the most detail
about his life, is David Cesarini's _Eichmann: His Life and Crimes_ (London:
William Heinemann, 2004).  And I find some interesting material on pp. 18-19:

  Between the announcement of his capture and his trial in Israel a huge
  amount was written about Adolf Eichmann.   In their haste to quench the
  public appetite for information and sensation, journalists descended
  on the shallow reservoir of known facts about him... One erroneous,
  sensnational account fed off another....

There are then some examples cited about various myths propagated in
print and by members of the Respectable Media Elite about Eichmann's
supposedly unusually deprived childhood.  Cesarini continues:

  All of this is nonsense.   Thanks to the judicial investigation,
  the basic elements of Otto Adolf Eichmann's early life are now
  well-established.

So the author who's bothered to deeply research Eichmann's early
life agrees with what the main Wikipedia article had said was
his full name.  He also confirms that "Adolf Karl Eichmann" was actually
the name of the Nazi Eichmann's father.

Now, it's possible that he could be wrong too.  But I wouldn't bet on it.
(I did do some cursory checks -- on the Internet -- to see if Cesarini
was considered a wingnut or otherwise widely discredited, a la David Irving,
but didn't turn up any obvious red flags.)  Of course, if I cared more
about nailing down the name issue once and for all, I could go check
more primary sources, but the above should suffice to show the 
problems of blithely dismissing what one finds on the Internet
when it contradicts what "everybody knows".

Notice here that I'm not claiming all sources to be equal.  I'm more
inclined to take the word of Nizkor and Cesarini over either that
of either an Encyclopedia Britannica article or a Wikipedia article.  Part
of why I am is because I consider them to have more authority in their
areas of focus.  But that's an authority based on track record and
reputation, and on the process they seem to have gone through to make
their assertions, such as making careful readings and transcriptions
of the judicial record.

And it was the information, clues, and tools that the Internet and
Wikipedia provided, to collect and check assertions, that enabled me
to discover more truth about Eichmann and his name than I could have
if I'd just stuck with Britannica as the last word.
And it also enables me to go in and update the Wikipedia article
appropriately, which I'll probably do when I get the chance tomorrow.

Or, to put it another way, authority is not dead for Internet users.
It's different. The Internet now gives us new, and I would argue improved,
ways to determine authority, if we care to use them.  In particular, you
can't hold it just by being a member of "the elite", however you define it.
You have to *earn* it, and be ready for challenges to it.  If you
expect to coast on your Respectable Credentials, whether academic,
governmental, publishing, or journalistic, but don't live up to the
expectations they imply, expect to be called on it by folks who
dig up more information and post it for the world to see.

That may sometimes dismay some folks who are used to counting themselves
with the elite.   But if it does, they'd do better to raise their game
than to complain about the "savages" who happen to be showing them up.

John Mark Ockerbloom