CHAOS & CYBER CULTURE

Remember Get Smart, the TV spook farce in which the good guys of Control battled the bad guys of Chaos? Well, according to Leary (Flashbacks, 1983, etc.), Chaos is good and Control is bad. Chaos is the life force, and Control, usually manifest in police helmets and American flags, is the Big Bummer that wants to stem it. In a cheerfully manic series of essays and rants, Leary, aware that the modem has replaced Maxwell Smart's shoe phone, addresses the central question regarding the relationship of information technology and culture: Do all our wonder toys help Big Brother and the forces of Control, or will they lead to an electronic realization of ideal democracy, in which the ability to order and produce information (read broadcast) is decentralized? Leary, ever the optimistic anarchist, sees cyberspace as a realm of freedom. The book itself is proudly designed for people who don't like books. With replicas of computer screens tuned into the internet as well as pull-quotes and sidebars, it reaches for the look not just of a magazine, but of a zine (electronic magazine). Like cyberspace itself, this is a poor place to loiter when searching for sustained thought but a terrific place to gather diverting ideas and notions.