On “Inventing the Medium” by Janet H. Murray

The birth of the computer, according to Murray, is a signifier of a completely new mode of thought, a shift in human consciousness. She cites Borges and his Garden of Forking Paths. Also, Vannevar Bush and his infinite and omnipresent library. Both men note the inadequacies of language and linear thought.
Murray makes a point to set up a dichotomy here: one between the humanist (Borges) and the engineer (Bush). The former sees the advances in technology and the exchange of information, and he reacts with uncertainty, discomfort, even fear. He sees contradiction and limitation. The latter, on the other hand, sees potential. He isolates a problem and offers/invents a solution. He does not necessarily consider the consequences of his solution.
Throwing these archetypes – humanist and engineer – into the context of post WWII society, Murray discusses the trajectory of postmodernist thought: obsession with and phobia of technology and its incredible and terrifying potential, awareness of social construction and subsequent deconstruction, self-doubt and loss of faith in meaning, irony, creative ecstasy and chaos.
When Deleuze and Guattari suggested a horizontal model for the organization of information, something snapped. According to Murray, humanists found meaning in interconnectivity, and when the engineers released the first personal computers, middle ground was discovered, and eventually, the internet was born.

Yup. There it is. It occurs to me that I am all over it. You can Google my name, and you will find me. You can find hundreds of pictures of me on Facebook along with my date of birth, gender, sexuality, religious and political views, my favorite movies and TV shows, books, and the list goes on and on. If I had a twitter account, I could share my status with you anytime. I am always accessible. Information flows more readily than water, and for some reason or another, that doesn’t really bother many people my age. It doesn’t bother me. Though, I have to wonder how anyone in my generation will be voted president.

I am confronted daily with the awareness that all human knowledge is available to me all the time. I am also incredibly aware of the fact that I am constantly being advertised to, being told subliminally what to wear, what my body should look like, what food I should eat, how I should perform my gender, my sexuality. I not really sure that any of the sources of postmodernist anxiety ever went away. Social construction is still pretty real. But maybe that’s the beauty of the internet. Just having all information available to me all the time really does seem to undercut any idealized reality that would be socially constructed for me. It’s like, “Here. Here’s everything. Now carve yourself out of it.”