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I confess to being a Caleb Carr fan, and to delight at hearing that his latest book is a foray into the realm of "speculative fiction." I read The Alienist and Angel of Darkness despite, rather than because of, the fact that they were historical novels -- my one true love is science fiction, but Carr's rendering of the world of 19th century New York sparked my interest in a way that most non-sf books don't.
I also learned a lesson from his books that he himself seems to have forgotten: that the problems of society are timeless and not anchored to available technologies or passing trends.
I was drawn to Carr's Salon commentary via a review of it that, in my opinion, was less kind than the content of the piece required. From the review, I expected to see a temper tantrum by a rejected writer, demanding that government raise the consciousness of the great unwashed to a level more apt to be appreciative of his work. Instead, I found a fairly thoughtful commentary on the nature of the Internet and the cultural and societal questions its prevalance creates.
Nonetheless, Carr's suggestions are problematic and certainly not reflective of a history that, having novelized in grand style, he might be expected to have a better understanding of.
Moving from perfectly valid concerns as to the effect of (largely corporate sponsored) information on the Internet ("[I]nformation," he rightly points out, "is not knowledge") on an increasingly wired culture, Carr makes his first major error:
"Only two forms of regulation are available in the United States: governmental and corporate," Carr says. And while somewhat less than enthusiastic about either form, he finds that "[G]overnment regulation is admittedly imperfect and often infuriating; but it must at least try to work toward the public good, or its authors will lose their power. Corporate regulation, on the other hand, knows only one purpose: profit." He leaves out, of course, the "regulation" provided by a truly free market, in which consumers exercise choice among varied alternatives.
By way of defending his already flawed thesis, Carr points vaguely to past government involvements in the market -- antitrust, labor regulation and child labor laws. This, of course, is where his account begins to diverge from history and fact; for as we know, all three of these (as well as utility regulation, which is now coming home to roost in California) were passed on behalf of and with the support of corporate interests, in order to protect them from the new competition that the market was delivering.
Carr is correct in stipulating to two forms of "regulation," but incorrect in his identification. Government and corporate regulation are one and the same; to the extent that government is involved in the market, it invariably serves the interests of the corporations, which have at their disposal vast sums of bribe money ("campaign contributions" and so forth) with which to purchase protection from competition and consumer choice.
The choice, then, is government/corporate regulation, or market regulation. Carr argues in favor of the former, and bizarrely cites as an example the "success" of the Federal Communications Commission in its mission to secure delivery of the unmitigated trash and pablum that the airwaves currently carry, versus the strong protection that the First Amendment has offered to print media, resulting in the wide availability of things like ... Caleb Carr's novels. The latest of which, by the way, I look forward to reading.
Beneath the perfunctory evocation of specters -- pedophile porn and the like -- on the horizon, I have to believe that Caleb Carr is sincerely looking for answers. The problem is, there are no easy ones. It is likely that the masses, for the foreseeable future, will continue to prefer glam-boy pop groups to real music, centerfold photography to real art, situational comedies to documentaries, and romance novels to real literature.
I don't have the answers, although I can speculate that they lie in an increasingly competitive marketplace of ideas -- one which the relative free expression of the Internet encourages. One putative answer that I must rule out, however, is Carr's: turning the temple over to the moneychangers, whether they garb themselves as corporate directors or concerned legislators.
