距離的價值

Distance as a Value

本文是《技術文化的時代－從資訊社會到虛擬生活》一書第十一章的一部分。作者對虛擬空間，即由新的資訊和傳播技術創造的網路空間的性質和意義作出深刻獨道的剖析。作者本著自己一貫的批判性立場，圍繞威廉•米切爾的《比特之城》一書，深入審視時下流行的現代技術文化的觀點，指出與眾多未來學家熱烈歡呼的消除距離、重創人類的居留地的觀點正好相反，作者認為新技術創造的沒有距離的空間其實是一個很平凡的空間，一個被撫慰的空間，新技術通過消解有意義的外部現實－真實的距離，而促使了真正的社會生活與經驗資源的枯竭。

This article is part of Chapter 11 from the book Time of the Technoculture-From the information society to the virtual life. Kevin Robins and Frank Webster analysed the virtual spaces and the network spaces that have been created in and through new information and communications technologies. They centered their argument around a discussion of William Mitchell's book, City of Bits, which presented all the elements of the modern technocultural vision. Contra Mitchell, Robins and Webster held the opposite view. They did not think virtual spaces have reinvented the human habitat. They regarded the new virtual space as banal and pacified. In contrast, they proposed the argument that the new technologies maycontributed to the depletion of the real resources of social life and experience through the erosion of significant external reality.