Copyright © 1998, by David Brin. All rights reserved. No duplication or resale without permission.

The Table of Contents and reviews, blurbs and commentary are also available on this site.

In preparing this book, I came to realize we must cover important ground before getting to the kernel of argument. So we'll begin Chapter 2 by comparing the bright new Information Age with other highly vaunted "eras" that left disappointment in their wake. Cynical observers are already predicting the same demise for the swaggering, overconfident epoch of silicon and electrons, yet the new cybernetic tools may help bring about a time of unprecedented opportunity, assisting hard-pressed humanity with pragmatic solutions to many vexing problems.

Chapters 3 and 4 will explore fundamental issues -- the nature and practical limits of privacy, how it is perceived by the law, and the looming question of whether information is a commodity that can be owned. One aspect that we'll focus on is the role of copyright protection to promote openness and creativity in society.

Ultimately, the big choices must be made by citizens, who will either defend their freedom or surrender it, as others did in the past. In chapter 5 we'll examine some peculiar traits of neo-western civilization -- a quirky and amorphous global super-society where eccentricity and ego are fostered the way other cultures extolled obedience, or physical courage. Chapter 6 then considers how lessons of accountability may apply to everyone from cops to society's rebels, as we learn to "watch the watchmen."

Along the way, in a string of "boxed" sections, we will take a look at several topics of survival in the Information Age, including the worrisome problems of photographic fakery and computerized extortion, as well as the ongoing question--should we concentrate on ideals, or what works?

Chapter 7 gets into "nitty gritty" issues concerning encryption (secret codes) and anonymity, two prescriptions that are highly touted by some of society's best and brightest cyber-philosophers. Then chapter 8 will cover some pragmatic problems, such as the controversy concerning names, passwords, social security numbers, and national ID cards.

Any honest person must consider the possibility that he or she might be mistaken, so chapter 9 is where I do that. Among other things, we'll discuss whether mathematicians think encryption can really offer security against data-spying by the biggest government computers. We will also cover a range of possible ways that "transparency" might turn into a nightmare, especially if my sanguine views of the advantages turn out to be wrong.

We live in an time that spills over with contradictions. Extraordinary wealth gushes alongside grinding poverty. Episodes of horrific bloodshed contrast starkly against unprecedented stretches of peace, in which billions of living human beings have never personally experienced war. Within a single lifespan we've seen great burgeonings of freedom -- and the worst tyrannies of all time. To find another era with as dramatic a range of highs and lows, you might go back twenty five centuries, when another "golden age" posed towering hopes against cynicism and despair.

Like today, classical Athens featured profound bursts of creativity in science, culture and the arts. But above all, what we tend to envision is that city's brief adventure in democracy, a brave experiment that lasted just a little while, and would not again be tried in a big way for two millennia.

Even staunch fans of Athenian democracy admit it was imperfect by present-day standards; for instance, women, slaves and those not born in the city had few rights. Yet, its relative egalitarianism was impressive in an age of hereditary chiefdoms and arbitrary potentates. Across centuries of darkness, from that democracy to this one, the lonely voice of Pericles spoke for an open society, where citizens are equal before the law and where influence is apportioned "-- not as a matter of privilege, but as a reward for merit; and poverty is not a bar..."

The virtues of this notion may seem obvious to modern readers. Today, citizens of many nations -- those that I call the neo-west -- assume that principles of equality and human rights are fundamental, even axiomatic. (Though they are often contentious to implement in practice.)

So it can be surprising to learn just how rare this attitude was, historically. In fact, Pericles and his allies were roundly derided by contemporary scholars. Countless later generations of intellectuals and oligarchs called democracy an aberration -- ranking it among the least important products of the Athenian golden age. Even during the Italian Renaissance, Niccolo Machiavelli had to mask his sympathy for representative government between the lines of The Prince, in order to please his aristocratic sponsors. After Athens' flickering candle blew out, during the Pelopennesian War (431-403 B.C.E.), none were more eager to cheer the demise of democracy than Plato, the so-called "father of western philosophy." Partly due to the influence of Plato and his followers -- and for reasons discussed in Chapter 5 of this book -- the democratic experiment was not tried again on a large scale until the era of Locke, Jefferson, and Madison.

"The greatest principle of all is that nobody should be without a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody be habituated to do anything at all on his own initiative; neither out of zeal, nor even playfully.... In a word, he should teach his soul, by long habit, never to dream of acting independently, and to become utterly incapable of it." -- Plato of Athens.

We all know in our hearts that freedom cannot survive such assaults, unless it is defended by much more than good intentions. For a time, in the middle of the Twentieth Century, it looked as if the Athenian tragedy might happen again, when constitutional governments seemed about to be overwhelmed by despots and ideologues. Writing under the shadow of Hitler and later Stalin, Karl Popper began his opus, The Open Society and its Enemies., by appraising the relentless hatred for empiricism and democracy that Plato passed on through his followers all the way to Hegel -- a philosophical heritage of self-serving, tendentious incantations (or "reasoning") whose hypnotic rhythms were enthusiastically adapted by innumerable rulers, from Hellenistic despots to Marxist Leninist commissars, many of them using logic to justify their unchecked power over others.

Looking back from the late 1990s -- a time when democracy seems strong (though hardly triumphant) -- we can only imagine how delicate freedom must have seemed to Popper, as well as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and others writing in the forties and fifties. Did they feel the ghost of Pericles hovering over their shoulders as they worked? Would the candle blow out, yet again?

Scanning history, those writers could see only a few other brief oases of relative liberty -- the Icelandic althing, some Italian city-states, the Iroquois Confederation, and perhaps a couple of bright moments during the Roman Republic, or the Baghdad Caliphate -- surrounded by vast eras when the social pyramid in every land was dominated by conspiracies of privilege. Ruling elites varied widely in their superficial trappings. Some styled themselves as kings or oligarchs, while others were priests, bureaucrats, merchant princes, or "servants of the people." But nearly all used similar methods to justify and secure the accumulation and monopolization of privilege.

One paramount technique was to control the flow of information. Tyrants were always most vulnerable when those below could see and hear the details of power and statecraft.

Today the light appears much stronger than in Popper's day, and new technologies such as the Internet seem about to enhance the sovereign authority of citizens even further. Yet, the problem remains as fundamental and worrisome as ever.

What measures can we take to ensure that freedom, instead of being a rare exception, will become the normal, natural, and stable condition for ourselves and our descendants?

In fairness, this same unease motivates many of those who oppose the notion of a "transparent society." They share the apprehension that Orwell conveyed so chillingly in Nineteen Eighty-Four -- that freedom may vanish unless people promptly and vigorously oppose the forces that threaten it. So, from the start, let me say to some of them that we are not arguing about goals, but rather the best means to achieve them.

That still leaves room for disagreement -- for instance whether the sole peril originates from national governments, or if dangerous power centers may arise from any part of the social-political landscape. Moreover, we differ over which tools will best help stave off tyranny. Metaphorically speaking, some very bright people suggest that citizens of the 21st Century will be best protected by masks and shields,while I prefer the image of a light saber.

These glib metaphors may cue readers that I won't be presenting an erudite or academic tome on the same level as Popper's The Open Society and its Enemies., and that is certainly true. I won't claim to prove or demolish any broad social rules. Above all, this book does not push an absurd over-generalization that candor is always superior to secrecy! Only that transparency is under-represented in today's fervid discussions about privacy and freedom in the information age. My sole aim is to stir some fresh ideas in the cauldron.

If we have learned anything during the hard centuries since Pericles tried to light a flickering beacon in the night, it is that we owe our hard-won freedom and prosperity to an empirical tradition -- in science, free markets, and the rough-tumble world of democracy. Only mathematicians can "prove" things using pen and paper. The rest of us have to take our ideas out to the real world and see what pragmatically works.

In other words, this is not a book of grand prescriptions (though some suggestions are offered). I plan chiefly to discuss under-utilized tools of openness and light that have served us well in the past.

Continue to 4, or purchase The Transparent Society.

The Table of Contents and reviews, blurbs and commentary are also available on this site.