By Cathleen
White
© 1998
In 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner made an historic
speech at the Columbian Exhibition. In his address, he spoke on
a theme which would form the focal point for the rest of his career:
“The Significance of the Frontier in American History.”
Turner’s hypothesis was that the frontier was the single most
important influence on the development of the United States and
its values. He spoke of it in for the first time shortly after the
census of 1890, when a report from the Census Bureau proclaimed,
“the unsettled area has been so broken into by isolated bodies
of settlement that there can hardly be said to be a frontier line.
. . . it can not, therefore any longer have a place in the census
reports.” Thus, with a few strokes of a pen, the frontier officially
ceased to exist. Turner quickly began to assess the importance of
the frontier to America’s past and to question the impact that
such a closure would have on the country in the future. His investigation
into the meaning of the frontier to the United States carried Turner
through the rest of his career.
Turner’s "Frontier Thesis" had
a number of important components. First, Turner viewed the frontier
as a constant for three hundred years. The boundaries of the frontier
shifted and moved as the population of the US expanded and important
discoveries were made: tobacco can be a cash crop, gold exists in
California, the desert that is the Great Plains can be farmed. Secondly,
Turner differentiated between different classes of frontiersmen
and settlers. He viewed settlement as a continuous process begun
by explorers who surveyed the new terrain. They were followed by
pioneers who established the first outposts of civilization. Pioneers
were followed, in turn, by settlers and entrepreneurs who turned
the wilderness into an extension of society. Turner saw this happen
repeatedly throughout US history, from the arrival of the Pilgrims
through the conquering of the Appalachians to the conquering of
the Indians and the closure of the West in the 1880s. The roles
played by the expanding frontier were many. According to Turner,
the frontier served to “Americanize” new immigrants and
resocialize Americans who venture out onto it. This process of adaptation
resulted in the development of many of the characteristics that
today are considered typically, if not stereotypically, American:
independence, ingenuity, and individual initiative, among others.
One of the most intriguing components of Turner’s
theory is his description of the Frontier as a “safety valve,”
or to use his phrase, a “gateway of escape.” One of the
major functions served by the frontier was that it provided a place
of refuge for the people who could not function in the crowded,
settled eastern lands: the urban poor, the misfit, the malcontent.
When one no longer felt a part of “civilization,” the
free, abundant lands of the West provided a ready haven for the
discontented, a place to start over unfettered by the expectations
and constraints of society. Of course, as Turner pointed out, civilization
follows closely on the heels of the pioneer. Eventually, social
constraints will catch up to the escapee. However, it is possible
for the pioneer to help shape his surroundings and community. At
various times and places, groups of like-minded settlers banded
together to form communities of their own design—beginning
with the Pilgrims in the 17th century and continuing
through the Mormons in the 19th. It should be noted,
however, that these relatively homogeneous communities survived
only as long as they were permitted to do so by an encroaching population.
Frederick Jackson Turner used numerous examples
from different eras of US history and from various regions to illustrate
his basic tenets about the importance of the frontier. In fact,
one of the most frequent criticisms of Turner has been that he had
a very limited repertory and was, consequently, very repetitious.
Turner did, however, point out something vital and enduring about
the American psyche: we need the frontier, or at least the illusion
of the frontier, as part of our national identity. In the latter
half of this century, Alaska was admitted as a state with the unofficial
nickname “The Last Frontier.” John F. Kennedy called his
vision of America’s future “The New Frontier.” Gene
Roddenberry christened space “The Final Frontier.” Within
the past twenty years, attention has focused on the most recent
incarnation: The Electronic Frontier.
Histories of the development of the Internet
are numerous and range from the brief summary found in Time
magazine in 1995 to recent books by Michael Hauben and Julian Dibbell.
Scholars have begun to apply Turner’s frontier theory to the
Internet within the last three years. Beth Scannell investigated
the development of virtual reality communities on the Internet as
a new manifestation of the frontier mentality in her thesis “Life
on the Border: Cyberspace and the Avatar in Historical Perspective.”
Rod Carveth and J. Metz proposed a number of theories about the
impact of the Internet on American Democracy based on their analysis
of Turner’s theories about the effects of the frontier on the
development of American democratic principles in their article,
“Frederick Jackson Turner and the Democratization of the Electronic
Frontier.” I propose to add to this field of investigation
by exploring yet another aspect of Turner’s thesis: his concept
of the frontier as a “gateway of escape,” a “safety
valve.”
The explosive growth in the size and use of the
Internet is well-documented. From its humble but ambitious beginnings
as a decentralized command military command system through its use
by research institutions and scholars to its current social, political,
and commercial uses, the Internet has exploded in terms of access
and content. The question to ask is “Why?” What has fueled
the growth? What has encouraged the average man, woman, child or
senior citizen to venture out onto the Electronic Frontier? For
some the answer is to find information. Those people often see the
Internet as a vast digital library. But, for many, the motivation
is to make contact with other human beings. Commercial uses need
little explanation: their purpose is to expand the marketplace.
Sometimes the contact is limited to the personal web page, a statement
of “I compose, therefore I am.” Consequently one can find
the electronic equivalent of the vacation slide show readily available.
Others, however, use the Net to find other like-minded individuals
for social or political purposes. These people, then are using Cyberspace
as a sphere in which to construct new—albeit virtual—communities.
Some of the communities, which have developed, consist of marginalized
individuals or groups who are taking advantage of the relative anonymity
of the Net in order to engage in deviant behaviors. A recent study,
for example, showed that 44% of visitors to the most popular Internet
pornography source were married and 15% were company executives.
Because of its higher level of discretion, the Internet provides
opportunities which many might not avail themselves of in “real
life.” Other Netizens engage in different forms of deviance,
including associating themselves with extremist political groups
or causes. Whereas these individuals may be isolated in corporeal
society, in the virtual realm they can find compatriots and fellow
travelers with the click of a button. While these individuals may
hesitate to don white sheets or swastikas in their hometowns, they
may do so with virtual impunity in Cyberspace.
It would be reasonable for an outsider to posit
that such marginal groups and communities feel disenfranchised in
“the real world” due to their status as minorities. But
do the groups in question see themselves as disenfranchised? The
answer is a resounding “Yes.” Furthermore, an obvious
question to ask about these Electronic Pioneers is whether or not
they see themselves as pioneers. Is this a conscious movement? If
it is a conscious movement, to what extent does the awareness extend?
For many groups and individuals, the answer to the question is affirmative.
And the affirmation often reflects Turner’s safety valve theory:
people are flocking to the Internet because they see it as untamed
and available for homesteading.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about these people
is that they come from all sides of the political spectrum. Republicans
often claim that the media is controlled by liberals, Democrats
blame conservatives, liberals cite corporate big money, and corporations
focus on activists. John Parry Barlow, one of the founders of the
Electronic Frontier Foundation and a former lyricist for the Grateful
Dead, wrote, “We must seek our future in the virtual world
because there is little economic room left in the physical one.”
In so writing, he echoes Turner’s essay of a previous century.
While many Netizens share Barlow’s views on the Internet, not
all of them share his political perspective. There is a sizable
and growing right-wing extremist presence on the Net.
One of the common threads that run through right-wing
extremist ideologies is the idea that that the mainstream media
is controlled by their enemies. The enemies include, but are not
limited to foreigners, Big Brother, wealthy corporate elites, Liberals,
and, most unoriginally, Jews. Consequently, because of this level
of control, many groups view the Internet as their best hope of
reaching the public at large. The most commonly linked-to page which
explains this point of view is “Who Rules America?” which
was published by the Research Staff of National Vanguard Magazine.
The main target of their exposé are the Jewish owners, publishers,
and directors of many of our largest media outlets. This, according
to the article, explains why the Ku Klux Klan, the Posse Comitatus
and the National Alliance cannot get fair treatment via the mainstream
media. Christian Identity minister and Posse Comitatus activist
James P. Wickstrom explains, “We have learned that a basic
multi-media approach is important. Use the same mediums [sic] your
opponents use to reach the same people. The Internet, for example
is proving to be very useful. . . . We have learned to communicate
with an increasingly apathetic audience using mediums [sic] they
are already comfortable with.”
Some organizations use the World Wide Web for
more than just propaganda and press releases. Many groups, including
the KKK and the Aryan Nations, use it as a recruiting tool. The
National Alliance offers a dating service where “you can meet
someone who looks, thinks, and acts like you,” providing you
subscribe to their racist beliefs. Almost all groups offer merchandise
for sale, ranging from books on home arsenals to cassettes of significant
speeches. Perhaps the most frightening and insidious use of the
Net is as an information-gathering device. Some of the sites are
closed to non-members, requiring the curious to reveal personal
information in order to gain admission. Many sites track visitors
with “cookies” left by visitors’ computers. A person
armed with the cookie and a few services provided free of charge
on the Internet—such as WhoWhere which will locate e-mail addresses;
411, which will locate phone numbers and addresses; and mapping
services which provide a map to a person’s house—can now
locate almost any person who has visited his site. Of the information-gathering
functions used by groups on the Web, the scariest is The Nuremberg
Files, a site dedicated to collecting information on abortion providers
and pro-choice activists. Their stated purpose is to gather such
information as is available in anticipation of the day when their
targets will be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. Their files
include names of spouses and children, pictures of homes and workplaces,
and even license plate numbers. Like other extremists, the operators
of the Nuremberg Files site see this as their best hope of reaching
a wide audience and gaining members and support.
Not surprisingly, extremist groups oppose efforts
to limit material accessible via the Internet. Like the westward-bound
pioneers of the previous century, many Netizens understand and value
the perceived freedom of the Electronic Frontier. The Blue Ribbon
Free Speech campaign is supported by vastly divergent groups and
individuals. It is, perhaps, the one issue of agreement among such
diverse people. Electronic Pioneers understand, perhaps because
of their knowledge of the myth and history of the real frontier
that the frontier is, perhaps, a finite, and, therefore, valuable,
commodity. Some understand, perhaps intuitively, that the Internet
serves a vital purpose in this age: that of allowing people, even
those with objectionable views, to be heard. As John Parry Barlow
describes it, “Today another frontier yawns before us, for
more fog-obscured and inscrutable in its opportunities than the
Yukon. It consists not of unmapped physical space in which to assert
one’s ambitious body, but unmappable, infinitely expansible
cerebral space. Cyberspace. And we are all going there whether we
like it or not.”
I believe that Turner was correct in his assertion
that the frontier is a necessary component of American life. Granted,
the nature of the frontier changes according to the observer. To
scientists and sci-fi aficionados, the “Final Frontier”
might be space. To an environmentalist or biologist, the frontier
might be the ocean or a proposed greenway. To a hacker or desk jockey,
the frontier might be the realm of ones and zeroes flowing through
the tenuous umbilical cords of the Internet. In any case, Americans
seem to need to invent new frontiers while simultaneously inventing
new ways to conquer the existing ones.
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