Standards, Networks, and Critique

From a technical point of view, standards make it possible to combine a variety of components into a functional system or network, thus creating the ‘‘network effects’’ with which we are all familiar. From a strategic point of view, stories about standards are necessarily about power and control—they always either reify or change existing conditions and are always conscious attempts to shape the future in specific ways. I have come to see the production of standards for new computer networks, one of my particular areas of interest in the history of computing, as acts of critique. One reference point here is Michel Foucault, who observed in 1978 that ‘‘critique only exists in relation to something other than itself’’—that is, it is always a response to external phenomena and existing power relations. Therefore, critique ‘‘must be an instrument for those who fight, resist, and who no longer want what is. It must be used in processes of conflict, confrontation, and resistance attempts. . . . It is a challenge to the status quo.’’ The philosopher Gerald Raunig, writing in 2008, agreed with Foucault that critique resists the status quo. Raunig further emphasized the potential of critique to serve as a foundation for action: ‘‘critique,’’ he wrote, ‘‘also means re-composition [and] invention.’’ In the hands of the cultural theorists Foucault and Raunig, critique sounds less like a traditional mode of literary or art criticism and more like a synonym for innovation. The goal is not only to resist or challenge what is, but to take action and make what could be. I think we can use these theoretical discussions to understand the diverse, and often conflicting, interests and worldviews of the engineers who made new network standards. In some cases, engineers offered explicit critiques in published works, conference presentations, and statements to the press—candid commentary on existing market, regulatory, and technical controversies. In other cases, engineers challenged the status quo implicitly, not by dwelling on existing conditions but by building new standards, network architectures, and institutions. Attention to both explicit and implicit forms of critique can help historians to situate innovations in computer networking more deeply in the social worlds that created and used them.