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In an effort to understand what is going on in James Fallows' article -- and what it has to do with us -- let's take another look at his story, this time speculating about the psychology of his relationship with Microsoft. We start with the fact that, as a professional writer, Fallows has spent a large part of his life using software to create texts that are important to his career and, undoubtedly, his self-esteem. It is no exaggeration to say that writing-related software is, for him (and certainly not just for him) an essential instrument of power, effectiveness and pleasure. But, in using this software, Fallows has constantly come up against a source of powerlessness because the instrument that makes much of his identity possible is often inadequately designed by other people. As a result, he has often felt stuck trying to do things on a computer screen that limited him in unnecessary ways. Increasingly, this conflict came to be centered on Microsoft, as it dominated the software market and, as Fallows says, as it crowded out other forms of software. Thus, Fallows (like many of us) has had to deal with a paradox, with software that enlarges him and a giant company behind much of the software industry that limits him and reduces him in size. Not surprisingly, his account of his relationship with the company is filled with images (which are accentuated with my italics) in which he is a small challenger up against a large and powerful force. For example, he describes Microsoft as the company that had "eliminated the competition" and that was like "the great, dominant U.S. military of the Second World War and the decade after". He tells us that programs had become "bigger, fatter, stronger, and more fully controlled by Microsoft" and he refers to the software company he might one day start in response as "my little word-processor company" and " my own little word processor". Working at Microsoft's headquarters, Fallows similarly refers to his own reduced size when it comes to his financial status, as he says he was "the poorest nonjanitorial worker in my building." We can also see the theme of exclusion in Fallows' piece, as when he tells us (with his italics) that, "Microsoft understands exactly who its most important customers are. Unfortunately, that group does not include people like me." Yes, these are narrative devices Fallows uses to construct a story in which he is David trying to persuade rather than bring down Goliath. And yes they accurately describe an aspect of objective reality. But Fallows clearly uses these images of size and exclusion because they convey how the conflict between himself and Microsoft feels from the inside. Fallows' response to this conflict, as recounted in his article (with my italics), was to draw up "increasingly elaborate wish lists of the features that a really great piece of software for writers would include." He then made an effort to bring about "the midlife fulfillment of a fantasy" by offering to help Microsoft write the software, which would give him access at least to an inner circle of power, if not the inner circle. Although Fallows was the weak player in this interaction, he had a number of tools at his disposal to get the giant to go along with his proposal. He was a well-known journalist and a critic of Microsoft who could do some damage. And Microsoft knew that, if it failed to grant him entry, he might take his ideas elsewhere. It was explicitly made aware of that at some point in the negotiations since Fallows says their agreement lets him keep ownership of any of his ideas the company doesn't use, in case he wants to sell his own word processor "in competition with theirs". Microsoft's response was to grant Fallows entry, even as it held him at bay, perhaps so it could learn what he had to offer, but definitely so it could discover what he might create as a competitor and stop him either from going elsewhere or from writing critical commentary about the company. But it also made an agreement that was intended to stop Fallows from revealing what he learned about the company. Microsoft's intention to protect itself from Fallows is shown clearly when he tells us he learned the identity of someone who created an unpopular feature of Word and, as a result, "I had to sign a separate confidentiality clause promising not to name him." Unfortunately, Fallows glides over all this, giving little indication of the awkwardness of his presence in Redmond. At one point, he tells us, without a hint of irony, that "strategic documents never filtered down to my level" -- as if the documents were withheld because of his place in the hierarchy of workers, as opposed to his status as a dangerous outsider whose knowledge of the company had to be contained. In any case, once inside the design team, (working primarily, but not exclusively, on Word), Fallows says: "Part of my role was to argue that it would be good for customers, and therefore ultimately good for Microsoft, to build in certain features that would make Word or Outlook easier to use." But, again, ambiguities abound and we have no idea if this was a role that others recognized or if this is merely a description of the role he assigned to himself as part of his own program to reform the company. What we do know from his text is that, having made it inside, Fallows still felt he had little power. He found himself in a situation in which he had to win over his colleagues for his proposals to survive. And he tells us some of the features he was excited about "were killed off early in the process," while others may survive in the final version. Perhaps that is one reason he says he spent "an almost entirely enjoyable, and more or less productive, six months in Redmond," a phrase that sounds positive in Fallows' article but much less so when you throw in those italics. Fallows also tells us he left mid-year, although he doesn't explain what phase of the design process this was and whether it was his preplanned time to leave, based on his agreement to work as a consultant for a fixed period. Now, apparently outside the loop again, there was one thing Fallows did control -- his own writing -- and so he crafted an article that hinted at the truth about the craven giant, even as he claimed to conform to the taboo against speaking that it had imposed on him. Psychoanalytic theory would suggest that, in this very complicated interaction, Microsoft management played the role of a parent (probably a father) for Fallows, which isn't as clichéd -- or unfair -- at it may sound. In this scenario, Fallows was the small challenger taking on a large power-holder in a fight over a long-desired object, which is the classic psychoanalytic paradigm. What he was ultimately striving for was the power and autonomy provided by software that enlarged him and that he controlled. But Microsoft, as the powerful, domineering, father who makes stupid decisions which limit that autonomy, refused to recognize or be swayed by his insight. As the father, Microsoft was in the inner circle of knowledge and power since it knew how to write the code that makes the software perform. In an effort to put this situation right, Fallows tried to "persuade Microsoft designers to see things my way", when seeing things other people's way isn't exactly the company's strong point. In doing so, he may have made the classic mistake of trying to get into the inner circle of knowledge and power in the father's household, where he could discover (and demystify) its mysteries, and take a measure of control for himself. Fallows gives us his own reason why he went to Microsoft -- it is because Microsoft had eliminated the competition. If he wanted to affect the way people use writing software, he says, it was to Microsoft, and its software product, Word, that he had to go. But there is other word processing software out there, and plenty of companies capable of creating it. An alternative course of action with a higher chance of success would have been for Fallows to found his own household, so to speak, by linking up with one of those companies on an equal basis, creating good software with them, and then using his credibility and media access to publicize it. In essence, then, what Fallows did was try to take control from within through the power of the better argument, rather than creating his own center of power, elsewhere. That meant he avoided a direct fight with the giant, displacing the conflict from an economic competition in the marketplace to an effort to exert influence inside the company. Such a strategy may have reduced (or delayed) his chance of success. But it also gave him a weapon in an arena he does control by letting him in on information he could use to write articles exposing the absurdity of those in power. Unfortunately, our own rule of discretion against going too deep in our interpretations will prevent us from expanding on these ideas. Fortunately, there is another theory we can use to understand Fallows' actions, since (odd as this may sound), the ideas about literature and archetypes developed by the late literary critic, Northrop Frye, cast a light on Fallows' descriptions. When we use Frye's ideas, we see that Fallows' article contains, in undeveloped form, a description of a symbolic journey into an underworld where the inhabitants are in bondage to irrational perceptions and actions. More elements of this archetype probably would have emerged if Fallows wasn't restricted in what he could say. But it still gives the piece some of its tone and meaning. Interestingly, this archetype is announced by the title of Fallows' article -- "Inside the Leviathan" -- since a journey into the belly of the beast is a symbolic double for a journey into the underworld. It is then carried out by other references. For example, Fallows tells us that Microsoft is "self-contained and thinks of itself as separate from the rest of the industry". Like other underworlds that are separate from the everyday world, it is a place full of anomalies, inhabited by strange characters -- "geeks" who are "grossly over- or under-weight", with "weirdo hair and clothes, (and) various hygienic oddities." They enact irrational actions, including the creation of a symbolic graveyard of "several thousand empty soft-drink cans" in an office -- skeletons that have had the life and fluid drained out of them, which is precisely what one would expect to find in an underworld. In addition, Fallows says that one worker had a caged boa constrictor in his office, which is an image of Microsoft. This is an animal, after all, that does what Fallows says Microsoft has done to the software industry -- it constricts the life out of its victims. We see another connecting link between the boa and Microsoft in the headline, which (once again), refers to Fallows' stay at the company as a journey "Inside the Leviathan" or sea serpent -- a connection that is relevant whoever wrote the headline. And snakes are commonly associated with the underworld, a connection we see prominently in Christianity where the Devil who rules Hell is thought of as a snake. Fallows also tells us this is a place full of dehumanizing and absurd posters "with messages like WRITE GREAT CODE! and YOU CAN WORK AS ONE," He says that makes it like the military but it also makes it seem like an absurd and deadening Orwellian nightmare. From these details, it is clear that Fallows' story suggests this is an absurd place, whether or not one sees the image of an underworld in the background. Fallows goes there as an archetypal hero, to free the inhabitants from their bondage by getting them to see things his way. But mostly he goes inside because this underworld is holding the surface captive and ruining a good deal of life there. Unfortunately, Fallows discovers the people in control of this place are also absurd. They make irrational decisions about software and can't be swayed. Meanwhile, the place is held spellbound by a fascination with money and wealth, a traditional image of spiritual deadness. In the end, having failed to free it, (and it is clear he believes he failed, even if he ends up having a positive effect on Microsoft software), the hero returns to the normal world and becomes the poet, singing in riddles about his experience. If the poet is originally a person who can't be a heroic dragon-slayer and sings about the hero's victory, instead, then Fallows condenses both roles in a way that is typical of journalism and critical writing. Having failed to slay the beast, he sings a song of absurdity that symbolically cuts the beast down to size. Like many archetypal heroes, (if on a much smaller scale) Fallows was acting on behalf of a larger citizenry. Screens and monitors, after all, are an arena through which we increasingly live our lives. They enlarge our power and effectiveness, provide pleasure, and enhance our self esteem, But they are also opaque to most of us. Between our inability to get computers to perform the tasks we want done and our difficulties figuring out how to use and fix them, they frequently leave us feeling powerless and can induce a frustration-aggression response of helpless rage. This paradox of power and powerlessness is characteristic of the age, partly because technology expands us while leaving most of us in the dark about how it does it. But it also characterizes the age because the companies that control software are often tone deaf to our needs and desires. And they are part of a media industry that routinely expands our ability to perceive and act, even as it tries to rob us of power and autonomy. If the companies in this industry were left to their own devices, they would turn us into children in their effort to control the virtual arenas that are central to many of our lives. We, in turn, undoubtedly experience these giant companies and the various media as powerful parental (father and mother) figures, which is part of a complex set of fantasies that have become attached to these new technologies. Thus, Fallows effort to take back some autonomy from a giant media company epitomizes a kind of battle that is now commonplace. It is characteristic of a time when conflicts over power and exploitation are increasingly about who will control virtual environments. In some ways, his journey into, and then out of, Microsoft is similar to the movie character, Truman's, escape from a stage set prison since both are about challenging and exposing the power-holders who control virtual environments. Of course, unlike Truman, there is no reference in this piece to Fallows confronting his own virtual constrictor, Bill Gates. Nor is there much of a happy ending since Fallows leaves us uncertain which, if any, of the features that have his name on them will be used in the next generation of Microsoft software. It is an indication of his continuing powerlessness in relation to Microsoft that, even at the time he wrote his article, he didn't seem to know. Instead, he is reduced to telling us that, "Some of the features I was most excited about may well survive to appear in the next release of Word...." Characteristically, in the final paragraph, he once again tries to get a little leverage with the company or, at least, he plays on this idea. He ends the piece where he started it, with the threat to create a competing software program if Microsoft doesn't adopt his ideas. "The software business no longer seems to have room for small companies that address the tastes of a specialized audience -- for instance, professional writers," he says. "But the Internet...may be a hospitable environment for boutique enterprises. Maybe that's where I'll launch my little word-processor company -- unless Microsoft, now alert to my plans, decides that a great program for magazine writers really would be a 'killer app'." That suggests Fallows' stay with Microsoft could turn out to have been a detour. If so, it undoubtedly gave him an enlarged understanding of software that he can use to carry out his threat to start his own company. It also gave him a story to tell, even if he is limited in the way he can tell it. Perhaps he is hoping we have the skill that Microsoft so sorely lacks, namely the ability to listen. --------------------------------------------------
You will also find in the Atlantic Monthly's "Post & Riposte" section, a post on Fallows' article that offers additional ideas (and a number of the same ideas). What's Wrong With the
Internet: Written circa 1997, this is an early
piece suggesting that many of the people who create software programs
don't know how to take the role of the other. |
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