Opinion: The rise of a digital nation

Published in the Mountainview

The April issue of Wired offers for your perusal its "Netizen" column, this month by Jon Katz, remarking upon the digital nature of the election of 1996, and continuing into an exploration of the impact of technology on the political and cultural systems of tomorrow.

Katz has fallen into what is becoming a cliched trap: an older person, ostensibly wiser than the "digital youth" under examination, generalizing about the type of person today's twentysornethings are and will become. Whether we are "Generation X," "digerati," or Katz's "Digital Nation," each of those commentaries has contained something very important and lacked something equally vital.

Katz's postpolitical world, a world in which traditional liberal and conservative values are conjoined in a mixture of individual responsibility and respect for the common good, is ripe with promise. He closes his column with the daunting sentence: "If they choose to develop a common value system, with a moral ideology and a humane agenda, they might even do the world some good." Katz has put himself, rightfully or not, in the role of mentor to what he calls the "digital young," an educated elite with technology at their fingertips around the clock.

It is in this role, and not the role of social observer, in which he fails miserably. A mentor's role is to see trends, possibilities, potential, and ramifications, and to advise upon a course of action. A protege's role is to listen to the mentor and decide what action to take.

The digital young are clearly the proteges in Katz's article, and yet he fails to give us any advice. Instead, we are left with the condescending hope that we do "something right" and end up being a benefit to our world.

In our own defense, this generation has traditionally rejected many norms and ignored not a few expectations (including, most notably, fear of the Soviet Union) in our time. It is ridiculous to suggest that we be expected to heed the advice of our elders; indeed even Katz remarks upon the individualized nature of youth today. However, as much as what we have ignored has benefited us, so too has it hurt us. We have lost the connection to tradition and to experience which has kept our species alive for many thousands, even millions of years.

It is precisely now, at this watershed time, when we need to hear all the voices speak; Katz lauds the Internet's ability to permit this to actually happen. We now need, more than ever, the wisdom of the years and the energy of youth to combine. Our elders are certain to give us som bad advice: we younger people are certain to make grave errors in judgment. It is now time to minimize the damage and learn and make what we can.

We may indeed be able to do the world some good, but we are certain to do more damage without leadership. That leadership must come not only from among our own, but from generations which have gone before, which remember a non-wired world, and which learned of the value of personal communication, and has experienced firsthand the impact technology has on a way of life.

Katz poses many questions: "How will this generation solve the world's problems?” is but one. Has he already given up the possibility that he may be part of the solution, if he chooses to work with us? Is he now becoming part of the problem, and passing the challenge off to other people who he claims are better equipped to handle it? Katz is an astute observer of social generalities, but he does not offer solutions, and seems unprepared to be part of them.

Perhaps historians will one day lament the leadership provided by the Baby Boomers to the Wired Generation; perhaps it will be the Baby Boomers about whom is said, "They could have done the world some good."

Drama Review: Dracula strikes a vein at Middlebury

Published in the Mountainview

Last weekend the Department afTheatre. Dance. and Film/Video outdid itself in the Arts Center Studio Theater. "Dracula," directed by visiting director Blake Montgomery '93, was a spectacularly intricate web of mystery. More a show than a play, taking place on a minimalist Brutalist set, "Dracula" engaged without entrancing, mystified without terrifying, and provoked thought without confusing.

The adaptation from the Bram Stoker novel, created by the cast and staff of the 1997 Spring Production Company, was, simply put, a melange. Putting a classical Greek chorus around Victorian characters, providing startlingly accurate sound effects onstage, and with unobtrusive lighting, "Dracula" was more theatrical than it was theater.

It was, to be sure, an excellent production. The set, which did not change throughout the show, took on characteristics of a castle, a house, a tomb, a train, a canal, and a bustling seaport. Character movements and dialogue served as the only transitions between locations; lighting, directions of character entry, and intricately blocked movement throughout the set provided the visual cues which ensured the audience was aware of scene changes.

The main driving force behind the story of "Dracula," that or evil, was persistent but not scary. The secondary force, latent Victorian eroticism, was only present in the character of the Count himself, who engaged in pelvic thrusts with victims, while drinking blood from their necks.

Complicating matters of audience comprehension, but providing illumination into the story, was the gender reversal: male cast members played female characters, and female actors played the male roles. At first disorienting, this switch became believable and integrated well into the performance.

A part of the show which did not fit well was the sole foray by a character into the audience. Dracula, terrified of his pursuers. raced up the stairs, paused, and then exited from the balcony. It seemed a gratuitous move, in a theater world where audience involvement is becoming commonplace. Monologues were most often directed at the audience, as expositions, rather than solitary ruminations.

The cast was solidly commited to flexibility. Costumes did not change throughout the play, despite widely differing circumstances and locations. The change of a character's nationality took advantage of the caricature skills of a native Texan actor; the set's versatility and believability has already been explained. Each member of the chorus also had a part in the actual plot of the tale. Further, the physical demands of moving around the set on foot, much less on all fours or on stomachs or backs, were strenuous, and were more than in a more conventional production of this story.

The character of Dracula, played by Michole Biancosino '98, was excellent. Not only was the makeup and costume extravagant and clear from the first moment about who this character was, but Biancosino's portrayal of the possessed and tortured Count was at once reserved and passionate. Motivated by desire, relentless, and fearful of failure, Dracula's attempts to create more vampires, and his ultimate defeat at the hands of determined cross-wielding pursuers, were well played. They conformed to some stereotypes of Dracula's behavior, while also illustrating a tortured side of the Count often lost amid the evil and fear he symbolizes.

The rest of the cast, some well-known on the Middlebury stage, and others newcomers, all conducted themselves with what can only be called Middlebury aplomb: their skill, courage, and attitude reflected how hard hey thad worked, and the challenge of the intensity of the story they performed.

This was, it must be noted, a rare event in the history of Middlebury theater. Not a single person stood to applaud at the end or the Saturday matinee performance. Everyone stayed seated throughout the applause. There was no encore appearance of the cast. It was as if the entire audience had become infected with some of the apprehension and malaise they had just seen acted out on the stage. The audience was also swift to depart after the cast retreated from the stage. Neither an indictment of the show, or a laudatory indicator, it demonstrated that uncertainty about the world had been assumed by the audience, at least in the short term.