ABSTRACT
It seems that in exploring the implications of the Internet we have been brought from one extreme to another. Having started the last chapter with the optimistic view that it might be the means to a truly democratic society, we are starting this one with the pessimist’s contention that the Internet is more likely to produce anarchy. Such an interpretation of the course of our inquiry would be a distortion, however. The argument of the last chapter showed that democracy is not the unqualifiedly admirable ideal it is usually made out to be. If this is correct, then the failure of the Internet to realize democracy in a new and more vibrant form is not failure per se and the ‘optimism’ that it could be expected to do so is misplaced, not because it rests upon futuristic speculation but because of substantial philosophical difficulties surrounding the democratic ideal. In a similar fashion, it is important to see that to predict anarchy as an outcome of the Internet is rightly described as ‘pessimism’ only if anarchy is a condition to be abhorred. Perhaps the unfavourable view we generally take of anarchy is no better grounded than the unquestioningly favourable view we generally take of democracy.
