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The Risks of Digital Communication
By the Rev'd Ron Barnes, D.Min.
Communication involves verbal or nonverbal interaction between two or more persons. At its basic level, communication means the transmission of information, requests, commands, or feelings from one to the other, in such a way that the receiver is effected by the receipt of the data. Communication can involve verbal information, written information, nonverbal signs, art, music, and many more forms; but all transfer or intend to transfer information from one to another. Communication thus relies on some form of intermediary --- colours on paper, shapes drawn in the environment, sound waves through air or some other medium, electronic impulses through conductors, or, as in sexual communication, the caress of a finger or touch of the lips.
Computer communication uses digital signals called bits to transfer information from one to another. Such digital signals must be encoded into bits or bytes by one person, through a keyboard, mouse, and computer screen, and then decoded at the other end by another person. However, the bits and bytes look nothing like the information itself. The bits are essentially commands to turn switches on or off. The bits are not the information being communicated, but commands to enable another computer to mimic the information that created the bits in the first place. These bits can be sent at virtually the speed of light to a computer next door, around the world, or out into space. But unlike print, they do not convey information --- but only commands to turn switches on or off in a distant computer.
The advantage of computer communication is that computers can send bits from one to another at blinding speed, with technical ease, and fastidious correctness, such that a message sent at this minute from one computer can be read in seconds at hundreds or thousands of computers, either next door or equally with ease on the other side of the world. These bits can power either a computer monitor so that the message appears in print on a screen, or a fax machine so that the message appears on paper, or be compacted in a file on a hard disk to await the computer operator’s command. No paper, no delay, virtually no error, and at little cost.
In a sense, we communicate in a similar manner. We speak in sounds, sounds that to the uneducated are simply a refined form of grunts, sighs, or musical notes, but we have learned that certain sounds have certain meanings that we call language; and those sounds are designed to convey ideas from one person to another. The sounds are completely different from the idea, in fact, often are quite dissimilar. The word "locomotive" does not convey the immense size, weight, colour, or noise of a locomotive; nor does the number "747" look at all like a Boeing 747 airplane in reality. Yet the mention of these sounds instantly conveys the meaning to a person who understands the language and has had some experience of either a locomotive or a Boeing 747.
In the computer field, bits are commands sent from one machine to another to turn switches on or off in such a manner that the distant computer will mimic the original computer, or place upon its monitor screen representations of colour, form, or letters that will convey meaning to us. In no way does the computer "understand" the meaning of those screen representations --- instead the computer understands only the commands that are sent to it, either from a keyboard, a mouse, or a modem.
If the computer cannot "understand" the "meaning" of the representations on the screen, it cannot "understand" the messages that are sent as communication between one computer and another. The bits that contain commands for the writing of a love poem are just as real in "meaning" as those bits that contain directions for the making of a terrorist bomb. The computer assigns no value to either message. It only determines the "correctness" or "incorrectness" of the bits, according to whether it is able to obey or not obey the commands that the bits contain. Thus computer communication is not involved with the orthodox or the heretical views of the sender or receiver. The message may be absolute truth or absurd nonsense --- and the computer faithfully reproduces it according to the commands in the bits transmitted.
This has some implications for computer communication for the Church. In the past, the Church was able to exercise some authority over the transmission of information via its own press, its own publications, and its own teachings. Press officers were hired to be sure that the Church could be sure that its own specific spin could be placed on information. Books could be approved, documents could be authorized, and Pastoral Letters vetted to be sure that only the orthodox truth was transmitted. People expected the Church to speak with One Voice --- and voices other than that One Voice would be viewed with either suspicion or expectations of heresy. Creeds, Confessions, Declarations of Faith to be signed, were the result of this One Voice communicating to the world. When one disagreed with the One Voice, one broke away from the establishment and founded one's own church, which in turn established its own "orthodoxy." These voices competed with each other as the One Voice,
that which spoke for reality, and communicated correctly the truth.
But the ease and universality of computer communication has changed all that. No longer does one establishment control the medium of communication, as a corporation can control television, press and radio under one roof. With the particularity of computer communication, and the universality of the internet, anyone with a computer and a web site (including of course, this one) can broadcast to the world his or her own perception of reality on an equal footing with the Church or any other religious group. Instead of one voice, there could be 3 billion voices, each broadcasting their own particular vision, each competing with the other for those who would read or listen. The reality of communication is chaos.
We cannot go back. Nor is going forward necessarily progress. The day of orthodoxy has vanished as a dream. There is no heresy, only competing ideas. The Church is filled with competing ideologies, all wanting to communicate, all pressing their point of view, all proclaiming their own orthodoxy. Pluralism within the Church has become a reality.
Only two choices seem to be available. The first answer is that the Church can resolve debates by publishing one code of reality, exclude all who disagree, and bar the gates against the infidel. There will be fundamentalists who find this the most comfortable idea, and who will thus seek to control all information and all resources under its control. Those who seek to know only the "right" answers, and to follow the "right" practices, will rush to join this Church. In its simplicity and its solidity, it will indeed be comforting and strong. But these advantages are ephemeral. Different nuances of truth will arise, progress in understanding will happen, ideas from the rest of the world will impinge, even the Holy Spirit will speak, and the Church of Permanence will either have to flex, or crack. Only God is unmoveable, precisely because God is already there.
The other answer is dangerous and uncomfortable. It involves the Church holding high the Cross of Christ, yet allowing a multitude of voices to speak of the wonders of that Cross. Of course, the Church is having enough problems existing in a world of pluralism, without contemplating the pluralism in the Church. The desire to "purify," to "separate," to "reform," will be enormous. Can the Church exist with a myriad of voices clamouring within it to be heard, without fragmenting?
Computer communication will not lessen the problem, but instead will augment it. Computer communication gives every person a pulpit, every person a voice --- and what is more terrifying, a voice that speaks equally with the establishment. No longer can the establishment proclaim, and expect all to listen --- instead computer communication allows everyone to speak, to discuss, to dialogue with one another, to expose, to challenge, to object --- and to do it all publicly. The young, the old, the priest, the sinner, the strong, the faint, the faithful, the ignorant, the normal, the gay, the Bishop, the fundamentalist, everyone will have equal access to communicate, and all can speak to all. Can the Church continue to proclaim "the Faith once delivered to the Saints" in the midst of a plurality of voices, many of which are its own?
Computer communication will blur the divisions between establishment and powerless. It will place the words of the Bishop on the same level as those of a teen, the words of a theologian with the speech of an ACW president, the meditation of a saint with the graffiti of a sinner --- and all will have equal power to communicate. Will we measure "value" by the number of "hits" on a web page? How will we decide what is of the "Faith" and what is Babel?
And yet, with the chaos comes an opportunity — computer communication brings the act of theologizing to the computer screen in front of us. All can be involved, all can know, all can struggle to make sense of the faith in our world. The distinction between theologian and people will be blurred. All will become students, all will have access to all the data there is, though none will know it all. All can share their struggles to live out the faith each day. All can read of others’ struggles. Party divisions melt away, as all will have access to the ideas of all. Understanding can grow as Christians share with others their growth, their failures, and their thoughts.
Computer communication places a world of information into the hands of the faithful ---and with that information, gives them a chance to be involved in the sifting, the understanding, and, yes, even the mistakes of using computers in doing theology. Because computer communication can transmit messages at virtually the speed of light, it will destroy differences in time and space, but it will not guarantee correctness. Christians around the world will share with others, as if they were next door, but what they share may be wonderful or worthless. What effect this will have on our different cultural values is yet to be known. The point is that whether we like it or not we are about to find out.
© The Rev'd Ron Barnes, 1997 | |
