Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the distinction between physical existence and the conceptual nature of identity, promoting governance through ethical principles rather than coercion.
John Perry Barlow's quote emphasizes that our identities, which are intangible and do not possess a physical form, must be governed not through force or external authority but through a collective understanding of ethics, self-interest, and the common good. It suggests that true governance stems from mutual respect and shared values rather than from imposing order through physical means, indicating a belief in the power of ideas and moral principles to shape society.
In practice
In a speech about digital rights, you could use this quote to argue for ethical governance in technology.
With the development of the Internet...we are in the middle of the most transforming technological event since the capture of fire. I used to think that it was just the biggest thing since Gutenberg, but now I think you have to go back farther.
The Internet treats censorship as a malfunction and routes around it.
The Internet may well disempower the nation state, but at the same time, it also strengthens certain specific state functions - like surveillance. As a political entity, it doesn't empower the nation sate. It creates the availability of much more data than the digestive system of the nation state could possibly assimilate.
If all ideas have to be bought, then you have an intellectually regressive system that will assure you have a highly knowledgeable elite and an ignorant mass.
The Internet amplifies power in all respects. It can grossly exaggerate the power of the individual.
I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.
It's normal for human beings to identify with their own separate self. The problem is that we get caught in that notion of ourself as a separate individual and caught in that individual self's agenda.
Psychiatry in this place is like serving an in-flight meal in the middle of a plane crash. If I wanted to make you well, as a doctor, I should be giving you a parachute, not a cheese-and-pickle sandwich.
That is why Christians are told not to judge. We see only the results which a man's choices make out of his raw material. But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it.
This is a mad planet," David Bowie said in 1971. "It's doomed to madness.
The issues which today confront the nation are clearly defined and so fundamental as to directly involve the very survival of the Republic. Are we going to preserve the religious base to our origin, our growth and our progress, or yield to the devious assaults of atheistic or other anti-religious forces? Are we going to maintain our present course toward State Socialism with Communism just beyond or reverse the present trend and regain our hold upon our heritage of liberty and freedom?
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.