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Afloat in Cloud Cuckoo Land?

Afloat in Cloud Cuckoo Land? ORGANIZATION & ENVIRONMENT Best, Kellner / March / COMMENTS 2000 ON THE SYMPOSIUM Dialogues and Debates Some Critical Comments on the Symposium, “Manufacturing Nature, Naturalizing Machines” STEVEN BEST University of Texas–El Paso DOUGLAS KELLNER University of California–Los Angeles evin Kelly’s (1999) nonresponse to our detailed engagement with his K work (Best & Kellner, 1999) replays George Gilder’s metaphysical distinction in Microcosm (1989) between atoms versus ideas, materialism versus idealism. Kelly replicates Gilder’s assertions that we are in a new historical era in which ideas replace atoms as the primary reality and organizing principle of the economy—a claim reworked in Nicholas Negroponte’s (1995) distinction between atoms and bits. This new form of metaphysical idealism, which privileges informa- tion as autonomous and transcendent, is recycled by Kelly’s claim that the “over- throw of the atomic world” is liberating us from the constraints of atoms, machines, place, and material reality (p. 429). Kelly accordingly offers a celebration of “ideas” that replace dirty and messy material reality, freeing us for a new world of “increased opportunities” and “options” that we are asked to believe has nothing to do with class, power, or exploitation. Cyberguru Kelly (1999) prides himself on being new, au courant, http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Organization & Environment SAGE

Afloat in Cloud Cuckoo Land?

Best, Steven; Kellner, Douglas
Organization & Environment , Volume 13 (1): 3 – Mar 1, 2000
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References (5)

Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
Copyright © by SAGE Publications
ISSN
1086-0266
eISSN
1552-7417
DOI
10.1177/1086026600131007
Publisher site
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Abstract

ORGANIZATION & ENVIRONMENT Best, Kellner / March / COMMENTS 2000 ON THE SYMPOSIUM Dialogues and Debates Some Critical Comments on the Symposium, “Manufacturing Nature, Naturalizing Machines” STEVEN BEST University of Texas–El Paso DOUGLAS KELLNER University of California–Los Angeles evin Kelly’s (1999) nonresponse to our detailed engagement with his K work (Best & Kellner, 1999) replays George Gilder’s metaphysical distinction in Microcosm (1989) between atoms versus ideas, materialism versus idealism. Kelly replicates Gilder’s assertions that we are in a new historical era in which ideas replace atoms as the primary reality and organizing principle of the economy—a claim reworked in Nicholas Negroponte’s (1995) distinction between atoms and bits. This new form of metaphysical idealism, which privileges informa- tion as autonomous and transcendent, is recycled by Kelly’s claim that the “over- throw of the atomic world” is liberating us from the constraints of atoms, machines, place, and material reality (p. 429). Kelly accordingly offers a celebration of “ideas” that replace dirty and messy material reality, freeing us for a new world of “increased opportunities” and “options” that we are asked to believe has nothing to do with class, power, or exploitation. Cyberguru Kelly (1999) prides himself on being new, au courant,

Journal

Organization & Environment – SAGE

Published: Mar 1, 2000

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