Let Them Eat Data: How Computers Affect Education, Cultural Diversity, and the Prospects of Ecological Sustainability

4. Evolutionary Theory and the Global Computer Culture

4Evolutionary Theory and the Global Computer Culture When the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico (NAFTA) went into effect in January 1994, thousands of Indians in Chiapas rebelled against this latest expression of modern economic development. Their struggle to retain their traditions in the face of international trade agreements led them to armed insurrection against the local representatives ofthe Mexican government; it also ledthem to usethe Internet to communicate their demands to the outside world. Computer technology enabled them to communicate with international groups that eventuallybrought pressureon the Mexican government to switch from usingtanks, fighter aircraft, and helicopters against the rebels and begin negotiations with them. On a trip in 1998 to the village of Guelatao high in the Sierra de Juarez Mountains of Mexico, I met with three young men who had come to the birthplace of Benito Juarez (the George Washington of the Mexican Revolution) to help the assembly ofvillage elders communicate their ancestral knowledge to theyoungpeople, who arebecoming increasingly influenced by modern media and their corresponding values. Through videos, radio programs, and the Internet, the young men were attempting to educate the local youth to recognize the importance of traditional forms of knowledge to solve environmental and community problems and to remain independent of outside experts who exacerbated their impoverishment and the loss of cultural identity. The Internet was seen as especially important for communicating with other indigenous cultures around the world facing similar challenges. 76 Evolutionary Theory 77 There are many other examples of such efforts to use computers to preserve cultural traditions against the eroding pressures of modernization . Indeed, numerous others could easilybe cited, including using computers to preserve languages on the verge of extinction. This use of the technology is generallyjustified on the grounds that the technology is neutral. Whether it has a constructive or destructive impact, so the argument goes, depends on the intent of its users . The young men in Guelatao expressed this view, and I have heard it expressed by audiences in several European cities where I gave talks on the cultural bias inherent in computers. The audience s questions—"Weren't people also concerned about the introduction of the railroad?"—were raised as though questioning the cultural impact of computers would prove to be as pointless as questioning the wisdom of this earlier technology. Not only indigenous cultures use computers to preserve traditional forms of knowledge and moral authority. Religious groups, particularly in North America, have used the Internet to transform themselves into a powerful political force that now influences the national debate on myriad educational and moral issues and government policies. Their ability to sustain themselves on the national level as an electronic interest group further threatens to undermine the separation of church and state that has been an ideal (though not always a practice) of liberal democracy. The widely held perception that computer technology is either neutral or brings more benefits than losses ignores a fundamental aspect of the cultural baggage that accompanies their use. In addition to the patterns of thinking described in earlier chapters (the subjectivity of cyberspace and the differences between data and local knowledge), the arguments for globalizing computers reinforce an increasinglypowerful and often ignored metanarrative. Scientists who are attempting to explain the fundamental processes that continue to shape life on this planet are still constructing this metanar- 78 Cultural and Ecological Consequences rative, which is commonly known as the evolution of the species. While recent developments in molecular and evolutionarybiology further strengthen this metanarrative, it has problematic implications that should be addressed in any discussion of the cultural effects of computer technology.This chapter will examinethe connections between computers and the issuesthat surround the use of the metanarrative to justify what is euphemistically called "convergent cultural change." Special attention will be given to how computer proponents frame advances in computer technology as part ofevolution . Understandinghow evolution theory isused to portray computers asboth a form of cultural progress, and apostbiological stage of evolution clarifies why computer proponents ignore differences in cultural ways of knowing and the culturally based moral values that govern human-to-nature relationships. Disturbingly, influential computer proponents invoke evolution theory to explain why some cultures have "evolved" further than others, citing the "fitness" of organisms to survive in their environment and the competition between organisms to ensure their own reproductive success. As the analysis of the writings of the more prominent computer proponents will show, these elements of...