The Virtual Condition

"The Virtual Condition" is the the introduction chapter to The Electronic Disturbance and begins by discussing society's changed to a virtual culture through the revolution in technology. This revolution has drastically affected all facets of life as data, global surveillance, and virtual reality have become embedded into everyday life. Therefore, the "political and cultural resistance" must conform to it and not the other way around. The chapter continues by exerting that throughout history (the last 2,500 years) there have always been allusions to the idea of virtual, albeit indirectly. Furthermore, it is the advent of technology that has allowed this concept of virtual to exist for it stems from "preexisting systems of though that have expanded out of the imagination." The remainder of the chapter presents six citations from texts ranging from 385 B.C. to 1321 A.D. Under each passage is another copy of the passage but some of the key words are replaced by others to show the virtual nature of history. In one example from 60 B.C., the words "atoms" are replaced by "pixels," "elements" by "representation," and "thing" by "image." Therefore, by substituting similar words that contain a modern technological context, the passage takes on a virtual connotation. This demonstrates how the technological revolution has affected society and its interpretation of systems of thought.

The beginning of the chapter claims that these seemingly "disparate systems of thoughts" have been combined into a body of "knowledge" because they all now refer to technology. Therefore, does the role of technology in our society produce a commonality across seemingly disparate beliefs and cultures?