The Cyberspace Dialectic

Micheal Heim describes the cyberspace dialects as the converging of the thesis, that cyberspace is the absolute future of mankind, with the antithesis, the realist believes that we should completely destroy all technology. Inevitably with these assumptions people can get carried away, like the unabomber. His actions were an unfortunate backlash to the Internet and other new media. Fortunately there are other people, who although they follow the unabomber's beliefs, they react against technology with essays and articles instead of bombs.

What Heim hopes for is a path in between these polar opposites: idealists, and realists. Heim explains that there does not seem to be a synthesis appearing any time soon; however, a middle path can be made with his term virtual realism. Virtual realism is the path in which people must not associate cyberspace with a world without a sky where "reality disappears", nor should people see cyberspace as just a tool.

This concept seems sound enough...although idealistic in its own right. Cyberspace is a fairly new concept though, so it is inevitable that people are going to take extreme reactions to it in the beginning. Because it is so new I think it will be some time before people are willing to take the middle path of virtual realism, and until then people like Micheal Heim must be patient.