Re: Microsoft on Microsoft

[Mitch Stone <mstone@vc.net>]

--- From a message sent by Dan Strychalski on 12/24/98 8:48 PM ---

>Yup. My officemate sent me that one. I was thinking of posting the URL
>here, then Norm posted it under the subject line "Rewriting History,"
>and now you've posted it. It raises an issue of some concern, eh?

Sorry, missed Norm's citation.

>Control of our culture. Stalinism by the back door. No few folks have
>been saying it would happen, and now it's happening.
>
>Have a very merry, y'all. If you can.

In a way, the effects of corporate cultural imperialism are even more 
insidious because we're led to believe that the marketplace provides a 
substitute for, or maybe the only true measure of, ethics, opinion, 
morality and critical thought. Under these conditions, we might not even 
know we're being misled, and if even we did, perhaps not care enough to 
file a protest. 

When I see Microsoft's casual efforts to spin history as if it was little 
more then a PR exercise I'm reminded of Henry Ford, when he said "history 
is bunk." I think he was expressing in simple terms the credo of the 
modern industrialist, for whom nothing really matters but the future and 
how they can control it, even if to the extent it involves a cynical 
exercise in rearranging the historical furniture. 

So for what's it's worth, Microsoft is playing at an old, old game here. 
Not that it makes me feel any better.

Mitch Stone
mstone@vc.net