In hypertext, we are like angels without maps, suddenly gifted with wings discovering not only that we cannot find heaven, but also that walking made us less dizzy, that our new wings snag telephone wires and catch in door frames. We recognize the apparently radical enactment of nonlinearity inherent in the node-link structure of all hypertext; we proclaim in various ways that revolutionary potential; and then we immediately rearticulate those potentials in terms of our conventional, normal practices. (Johnson-Eilola 13-14)
If nothing else, Gary Wolf’s article “The Great Library of Amazonia” makes clear that we are nostalgic angels, still clinging to an epistemology of atoms while at the same time looking forward to the freedom of bits. In fact, one of the reasons that western capitalism is able to continue its economic paradigm of control is based on this nostalgia, this longing for permanence, perhaps, that digital media does not suggest. [. . .]
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