Tausend Welten: Die Aufloesung der Gesellschaft Im Digitalen Zeitalter (A Thousand Worlds: The Dissolution of Society in the Digital Age)
1997; Wiley; Volume: 20; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1542-734X
Autores ResumoAlthough primarily directed toward a Germanspeaking audience, Uwe Jean Heuser's book holds important insights for American readers as well. Establishing an intercultural comparison among the United States, Europe, and Japan, Heuser, the business editor of the renowned German weekly Die Zeit, cogently demonstrates that economic and technological forces of the digital age are decisively shaped by American culture and traditions. Through recourse to the German example of socially responsible government (Sozialstaat), Heuser attempts to develop an alternative to the American model of the postindustrial society. Heuser's main argument is that the meritocratic economy of ideas is fragmenting society into a thousand worlds and dissolving traditional forms of solidaric communities. Especially affected are government-supervised social programs in Germany (e.g., welfare and health insurance) which depend on values of community and solidarity. By drawing on American prophets of the postindustrial society such as Daniel Bell, Peter Drucker, and Alvin Toffler, Heuser makes the immensely important observation that current attempts to reform Germany's ailing social system by simply cutting costs and to reduce its level of unemployment by extending existing regulations are based on an obsolete industrial model which presupposes stable, lifelong, and dependant employment. To American readers, Heuser reveals that the belief in the uniform character of the digital revolution (represented, for example, in Nicholas Negroponte's 1995 bestseller Being Digital) is a form of technological determinism. Rather than simply importing patterns of the American postindustrial economy, Heuser argues that each society will have to find its own mode of entering the digital age by drawing on its own distinct social traditions, and common beliefs (10). He bases this assertion on the work of the American economist Robert Heilbroner who, in the 1960s, posited that technology is influenced by political decisions as well as social, cultural, and individual attitudes. Heuser shows that since the United States dominates the idea-intensive fields of popular culture, computer software development, the Internet, and corporate organization, these areas are in turn shaped by American culture, history, and traditions. The postindustrial economy thus stresses the flexible organization of work and social relations, reflects American technological optimism, and emphasizes individual freedom over consensus and solidarity. Often compared to the opening of the Western frontier, the Internet is said to be characterized by the American pioneering spirit and the American ideal of freedom. …
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