The Dream of Total Knowledge: Hypertextual Fantasies

Abstract

In this chapter we change our focus yet again, this time to the interface between human and machine when it comes to the question of knowledge and its fantasy structures. The “wiring” of education for privileged youth has received wide attention. Upscale middle-class parents are in favor of such a computerization of schools, according to the Pew Internet Report (Lenhart et al. 2000) because they see this as a way for their children to “get ahead” in the world by having the latest technologies. Educationally speaking, one of the most controversial issues concerning the Web is the nature of knowledge that it offers. Joseph Weizenbaum (1976) many years ago argued passionately that judgment was uniquely human and impossible to replicate in a machine. Yet, his initial insight has been constantly challenged. There is a significant divide between an education that teaches teens computer programming and how computers work by making them transparent—as first pioneered by the MIT educator Seymour Papert (1980)—and simply teaching them how to use the programs, which is what generally passes for computer literacy in the majority of schools. Turkle (1997) has usefully attempted to show the difference between these two approaches.