Freedom at the Electronic Frontier: Libertarianism and American Cyberculture, 1984-2001.

电子前沿的自由：自由主义和美国网络文化，1984-2001。

• 批准号: 2436891
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Oxford
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2436891
• 关键词: Freedom; Electronic; Frontier; Libertarianism; American

The project's objective is to complete the first historical study of American "cyberlibertarian" thought in relation to wider libertarian, neoliberal, and anarchist ideas. The project seeks to answer two research questions: to what extent was cyberlibertarianism a coherent ideology? And: what were the chief intellectual sources of cyberlibertarian thought? In so doing, the project aims to place contemporary cyberlibertarian legacies, such as cryptocurrency, political hacking ("hacktivism"), and Silicon Valley firms' continued resistance to government access to personal data in historical context, tracing their origins to techno-utopian thought in the Internet's early years. This project builds on existing research into the Internet's ideological history. Sociological accounts of cyberlibertarianism emerged contemporaneously in the 1990s, notably with Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron's 1995 article, 'The Californian Ideology,' which argued that America's technology world was governed by: 'hi-tech libertarianism: a bizarre mish-mash of hippie anarchism and economic liberalism beefed up with lots of technological determinism.' The first historical investigation in this area was Fred Turner's From Counterculture to Cyberculture (2006), which traced the influence of hippie publisher Stewart Brand on Wired magazine. This was followed in 2011 by sociologist Thomas Streeter's The Net Effect, which linked computer and Internet utopianism to a revival of neoliberalism in the 1990s, in the context of post-Cold War optimism. However, Turner's 2006 book remains the only study driven by primary sources. This project expands on the existing scholarship by investigating three distinct strands of cyberlibertarianism: corporate, "cyberdelic" (former countercultural figures), and "cypherpunk" (cryptography enthusiasts). The role of corporate media commentators in popularising cyber-utopian and cyberlibertarian discourses, such as Esther Dyson and Alvin Toffler, as well as academics like Ithiel de Sola Pool and Michael Rothschild, remains little studied. The role of former countercultural figures in legitimating discourses of "Digital Revolution" was addressed partially by Turner, but the role of prominent Sixties figure Timothy Leary's conversion to libertarianism remains to be seen. Named after the hacker heroes of cyberpunk literature, "cypherpunks" have similarly been little studied by historians, despite their continued contemporary influence in the form of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, which were first conceived in the 1980s as a way of 'Techno-thwarting the State.' Broadly speaking, corporate cyberlibertarians were affiliated to neoliberalism and traditional rightwing libertarianism, cyberdelic figures to Sixties personal liberation and consciousness expansion doctrines, and cypherpunks to anarcho-capitalism, anarchism, and not infrequently the progenitors of today's alt-right. This project will map the evolving discourses associated with each strand, drawing attention to their tensions, commonalities, and distinctive features, paying particular attention to how these diverse cyberlibertarian discourses combined in the media to create the narrative of Digital Revolution.This project will make use of physical and online sources. Much cyberlibertarian debate occurred on platforms like Usenet or the Cypherpunks Mailing List, which are archived online. This should enable enhanced mapping of evolving debate and discord among cyberlibertarians. Alongside specialist publications like Wired, Mondo 2000, Phrack, and Reason; mainstream media publications; and the published works of Dyson et al; this project will also consult two physical archives, the Esther Dyson Papers at Harvard and the Timothy Leary papers at the New York Public Library. With this combination of sources, it is hoped that a much fuller picture of cyberlibertarianism's development will be attained than by using published sources alone.

该项目的目标是完成美国“网络自由主义”思想与更广泛的自由主义，新自由主义和无政府主义思想的第一次历史研究。该项目旨在回答两个研究问题：在多大程度上是网络自由主义的一个连贯的意识形态？网络自由主义思想的主要知识来源是什么？通过这样做，该项目旨在将当代网络自由主义遗产，例如加密货币、政治黑客行为（“黑客行动主义”）以及硅谷公司对政府访问个人数据的持续抵制置于历史背景下，将其起源追溯到技术乌托邦思想在互联网的早期。这个项目建立在现有的研究到互联网的思想史。对网络自由意志主义的社会学解释在20世纪90年代同时出现，尤其是理查德·巴布鲁克（Richard Barbrook）和安迪·卡梅隆（Andy Cameron）在1995年的文章《加州意识形态》（The California Ideology）中指出，美国的科技世界是由“高科技自由意志主义：嬉皮士无政府主义和经济自由主义的奇怪混合体，加上大量的技术决定论。这一领域的第一个历史调查是弗雷德·特纳的《从反文化到网络文化》（2006年），该书追溯了嬉皮士出版商斯图尔特·布兰德对《连线》杂志的影响。2011年，社会学家托马斯·斯特里特（Thomas Streeter）发表了《网络效应》（The Net Effect），将计算机和互联网乌托邦与20世纪90年代新自由主义的复兴联系在一起。然而，特纳2006年的书仍然是唯一一本由原始资料驱动的研究。该项目通过调查网络自由主义的三个不同方面来扩展现有的奖学金：企业，“cyberdelic”（前反文化人物）和“cypherpunk”（密码学爱好者）。企业媒体评论员在普及网络乌托邦和网络自由主义话语中的作用，如Esther Dyson和Alvin Toffler，以及Ithiel de Sola Pool和Michael Rothschild等学者，仍然很少研究。前反文化人物在使“数字革命”话语合法化方面的作用部分由特纳解决，但六十年代着名人物蒂莫西·利里（Timothy Leary）转变为自由意志主义的作用仍有待观察。以赛博朋克文学中的黑客英雄命名，“cypherpunks”同样很少被历史学家研究，尽管他们以比特币等加密货币的形式继续对当代产生影响，比特币最初是在20世纪80年代被认为是一种“技术挫败国家”的方式。“广义上讲，企业网络自由主义者隶属于新自由主义和传统右翼自由主义，网络自由主义者隶属于60年代的个人解放和意识扩张学说，而密码朋克则隶属于无政府资本主义，无政府主义，并且经常是今天的alt-right的先驱。这个项目将绘制与每一股相关的不断发展的话语，提请注意它们的张力，共性和独特的特征，特别注意这些不同的网络自由主义话语如何在媒体中结合起来创造数字革命的叙事。这个项目将利用物理和在线资源。许多网络自由主义者的辩论都发生在Usenet或Cypherpunks邮件列表等平台上，这些平台都在网上存档。这将有助于更好地了解网络自由主义者之间不断演变的辩论和分歧。除了《连线》、《Mondo 2000》、《Phrack》和《Reason》等专业出版物;主流媒体出版物;以及戴森等人的出版作品外，该项目还将查阅两个物理档案，即哈佛的埃丝特·戴森论文和纽约公共图书馆的蒂莫西·利里论文。有了这些来源的结合，人们希望比单独使用出版的来源更全面地了解网络自由主义的发展。