Here is the headline:
EU digital exclusion is ‘unacceptable’.
The clear implication of the quotes in that headline is that whereas the person being reported doing the talking indeed said “unacceptable”, that doesn’t mean that the word makes much sense, and in fact it is probably rather ridiculous. Quite so.
But to me the word “exclusion” is at least as much deserving of sneer quotes.
I do not have a car, a smart phone, a garden, a hi-fi system that would enable me to get full sonic value from the quite numerous classical SACDs that I have acquired over the years, a cat, a Kindle, a wife, an exercise bike, an actual bike, any paintings on my walls, a Spurs season ticket (even though I like it when Spurs do well), a snooker table, a Bible (I lent mine to someone and never got it back), a blender (I did have one but didn’t use it much and didn’t much like it when I did so I sold it to a friend), a yacht, a space exploration company, or a collection of ornamental hippos. Just yesterday, I made the arrangements to get rid of my photocopier. I do have a personal blog, and also write for an impersonal blog (this one), but I use neither Twitter nor Facebook. Of none of these various things that I don’t have or don’t use does it make sense to say that I am “excluded” from them. I merely choose not to have or use these things, or, in the case of the rather expensive or inconvenient ones, I am put off by the money it would cost to buy or to accommodate them, and the effort that would be involved in acquiring the money to pay for such transformed personal arrangements. (I would really like a cat, but that would mean me getting a different home.)
Martha Lane Fox says that lots of EU citizens not being connected to the internet is “unacceptable”. But instead of “not being connected”, she says “excluded”.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Lane Fox described the gap as “terrifying”.
More quotation marks, signifying more ridiculousness. Evidently Martha Lane Fox is a women who is easily frightened. What on earth is so “terrifying” about people not using the internet? Not so long ago, nobody used the internet, because there was no internet. Life went on.
Martha Lane Fox is apparently something called the “UK Digital Champion“. More sneer quotes there, this time from me. She was appointed this by Gordon Brown, and the current government carried on with this stupid arrangement. Should we perhaps start a series here, called something like: Public sector jobs that are stupid even by the usual standards of the public sector.
It all very much reminds me of this excellent posting here not long ago by Rob Fisher, in which he said, among various other wise things:
I imagine that libertarians are very much in the habit of questioning the deeper meaning of words.
This libertarian certainly is. The deeper meaning that Martha Lane Fox is in this case suffering from, and spreading, is the notion that Things Only Happen Because They Are Forced To Happen. I don’t have a cat or a Kindle, and that must mean that someone or something or some combination of someones and somethings must have forced me not to have a cat or a Kindle, just as if a gun had been pointing at me. Therefore, if “we” (another portentously wrongheaded word) think that cats and Kindles are good (as is many ways they are good, especially cats) it would be good also if “we” were to change the forces now forcing themselves upon me, and force me instead to have a cat and a Kindle. No more force would be involved. The forces in play would merely have been rearranged a little.
I do not describe such ideas as “unacceptable”. The title of this posting is ironic, despite its lack of sneer quotes. I must accept that many stupid people, such as Martha Lane Fox, are in the grip of these ideas, partly because of various words that rattle about in their heads for which they know no better alternatives, even if they might like to, and that as a result I and many others are subjected to force in circumstance where we ought not to be. But just as I choose not have a cat, so too I also choose not to think in this silly way myself.
Brian,
This is my personal “blog post of the month.” Nicely put.
One aspect of this way of thinking is that there is some “normal” which is usually represented by the circumstances or aspirations of the speaker or writer. This particular normal is the benchmark by which one may determine whether force has caused some deviation. If it is “normal” to have a Kindle, ie. the writer or speaker has one or wants one, and you don’t have one, then clearly those forces you describe are at work.
On this side of the pond there was a short lived (I think and hope) movement to require parents to have television for their children — those who did not were to be subject to a visit from the child protective services people. This movement seems to have been killed off pretty quickly by the arrival of widespread internet use.
It is interesting how much of statism/collectivism/anti-libertarianism or whatever you want to call it, appears to be driven by a simple but deep seated urge to conformity.
Brian, I think you could have a cat in your flat.
Assuming you didn’t forget to feed it.
I beg to differ, Brian: Kindles are much gooder than cats. That said, you are certainly entitled to having, and to be feeling excluded form having both.
I too would like a cat. But that would also mean getting a new wife (not the cat!).
I was thinking much the same as I read it. If there was a Samizdata Annual, this would be a shoo-in. There isn’t really anything to add. I particularly liked
Bravo, Brian.
Matha Lane Fox.
Yet another example of someone who is good a business (and understands modern technology and customs) – but knows bugger all about the basic principles of political economy.
Of even of basic reasoning.
But then basic reasoning (the rules of logical thought) is (as Carl Menger showed – drawing from Franz Branteno) what economics is about.
“But someone who is good at business and good at….. must understand the basic principles of logical thought”.
No – it does not work that way.
And it does not work the other was round either.
The problem is that the Internet is not a separate good which can be taken or left alone, like an exercise machine or beer or recorded music or football scores.
It is becoming a fundamental element of the processes by which such end-goods are obtained.
People who can’t or don’t use it are handicapped. And yes, it’s possible to live a decent life without it, just as it is possible to live without being able to see or use both hands.
Ms. Fox’s use of “excluded” is somewhat problematic. There are people who cannot use the Net because they cannot obtain a connection at reasonable cost, or because they don’t have any accessible way to learn how. “Excluded” is a reasonable term for them.
Unlike her, however, I would not include the urban poor who can’t pay for it because they don’t work and squander what money they do have on booze, tobacco, or gambling.
No, it is not ‘fundamental’ because it is just one of several options, which is why any talk of ‘exclusion’, a loaded word if ever there was, is just preposterous.
There are very few aspects of modern life that cannot be accessed off-line and indeed I know people who simply refuse to use the internet at all (a mistake in my view but that is not the point) and they manage to exist in this modern world of ours quite effectively and entirely to their satisfaction internet-free.
…or a collection of ornamental hippos.
What the hell is wrong with you, man?!
There are people who cannot use the Net because they cannot obtain a connection at reasonable cost
I expect most of these choose to live in the arse-end of nowhere.
Ah, but you are missing the point: MLF is a classic ‘useful idiot’, by which I don’t mean she is stupid, but that she is enthusiastic about one vision of the good life and deeply politically naive.
In Whitehall the internet is desired to be a tool of government, rather than a tool of freedom from it. ‘Government service’ – i.e. supervision of the populace – is to be ‘digital by default’, in order to make such supervision easier and more comprehensive. The problem with that is that the segments of the population that are most difficult to supervise – the semicriminal, the old, the distant, the mobile – are the least likely to have a fixed, or any, internet connection or to be familiar with the required conventions.
While such people are excluded, electronic citizen-management is hard to justify and likely ineffective, since going off the net allows anyone to pour sand in the wheels.
Did you know Martha doesnt get paid to be the UK Digital Champion? Probably worth noting when you sit down to write another awful online article
Thanks Guy – I had the exact same thought, but too tired to articulate it…
I think you would be great cat owner, Brian, like Robert Heinlein. All part of the mystique.
As for your not having a blender, I remember there is a quite good Will Smith movie (correct me if I am wrong) in which he tells his adversaries that he can tolerate any slight or attack, but not the theft of this kitchen device.
Oi! Watch it, you! I am very fond of my collection of ornamental hippos as anyone who has ever visited Festung Samizdata will know.
The blender stars in “Enemy of the State”. For unaccountable reasons the evil surveillance people take a fancy to the blender while searching Will Smith’s house (staging a fake robbery/vandalisation as cover)
The blender is recovered from their surveillance van towards the end of the film.
It must be a symbol of something, but of what I know not.
There are a number of former shareholders in “Last-A-Minute-Dot-Con” who might dispute that assessment, Paul.
Mostly-irrelevant question:
If you don’t have a stereo capable of extracting the extra value from an SACD, why get the recordings on SACD in the first place?
Is it just that classical recordings you desire happen to come on SACD?
(For that matter, with modern technology, a very cheap sound system indeed surpasses any but the highest of high fidelity systems of the 70s.
Any number of cheap CD players and sets of headphones will produce exceptional sound, by any fair standard.)
Tim Newman and Rich Rostrom:
This comment is coming to you via a 44k modem connection. I wouldn’t describe where I live as any end of nowhere, but it certainly isn’t a built up urban area. Kind of semi-rural/semi-suburban.
I wanted to respond to make a few points. First, not having broadband is a case of “pain in the posterior” not a great handicap. I definitely do have internet access so I can’t speak to how much worse it would be not to have it, but I have several times considered dropping it.
Second, I’ve so far (5 years and counting) been unable to find broadband at *any* price, which is very frustrating. I had a $140 per month contract signed at one point only to have Comcast drop me a brusque email saying the deal was off. I responded by asking for further information and a higher price but so far they aren’t returning my calls. It’s not a thing worth trying to pursue a civil suit over but I will take every opportunity to complain about them publicly.
It continues to astonish me that my friends and neighbors look at this situation not as poor customer service, and a response to economic realities (running all that fiber or coax is expensive), but rather as some kind of rights violation. I’m frequently urged to involve government. An idea I can neither support nor understand, but apparently there are those who do. I decided to move here, so who’s fault is that?
So, is it frustrating? Sure. Is it crippling? No. Is it some kind of civil rights violation? No. Is there a role for state backed force here? None that I can see.
I think it is important to hear this occasionally from one whose ox is being gored.
Having said all of that, there are some very real issues which surround the regulation of Telecom, at least in the US. My inability to get broadband at any price makes me suspect one of those regulation induced “market” failures. Were I to find that to be the case, my attitude about involving government would change…
Oi! Watch it, you! I am very fond of my collection of ornamental hippos as anyone who has ever visited Festung Samizdata will know.
Indeed, and I have an impressive collection of ornamental hippos myself (or rather, my wife does). Which is why I find it incredible that Brian doesn’t, and assume something is wrong with him!