ABSTRACT
Is the Internet merely a dissolution of society as we know it, or does it have the makings of wholly new social forms? Those who take the gloomy view are open to an important objection: why pin the responsibility for further social fragmentation on the Internet? In so far as it is intensifying a descent into moral anarchy, the fault lies not with the Internet as such, but with the society and culture out of which it has sprung. While it is not implausible to argue that the Internet provides greater scope to radical individualism, individualism itself is the product of social changes far wider and more long-standing than anything the Internet has, or could have, accomplished.
