The culture of the Internet and the Internet as cult : social fears and religious fantasies / by Philippe Breton ; translated by David Bade.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Breton, Philippe, 1951-

Standardized Title:

Culte de l'Internet. English

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Internet--Social aspects.

Internet.

Communication--Social aspects.

Communication.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (187 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Duluth, Minn. : Litwin Books, 2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this book, French author Philippe Breton looks at the Internet and the culture surrounding it through the lens of its cultural background. Central in his insightful analysis of "the Internet as cult" are Teilhard de Chardin and the New Age, but he looks also at the fears, passions and pathologies of Alan Turing and Norbert Wiener, the imagined worlds of Isaac Asimov, William Gibson, J.G. Ballard and Timothy Leary, the prognostications and confessions of Bill Gates, Nicolas Negroponte and Bill Joy, and the philosophies of Saint-Simon, McLuhan and Pierre Levy. Dreams of a transparent and unmediated world, a world in which neither time nor space are relevant, a world without violence, without law, without a distinction between the public and the private, Breton contrasts with the reality of propaganda, computer viruses and surveillance, the world in which "sociality in the sense of mutuality disappears in favor of interactivity," where "experience with another and with the world in general is replaced by brief reactionary relations that hardly engage us at all." This English language translation is by David Bade."

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Philippe Breton: A brief introduction by the translator

Foreword

Introduction

1. For or against the Internet: A false alternative

2. The promise of a better world

3. The incarnation of a vision

4. A universe of belief

5. The foundations of the new religiosity

6. The taboo against direct encounter

7. A threat to the social bond?

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-936117-52-5

OCLC:

726828641