Now, however, the telegram has been made obsolete by the invention of overnight express delivery. In this method, which costs sums that would make Tina Brown blanch, the envelope can be opened only with the help of barbed-wire cutters; and once opened, it still does not disclose its contents immediately, thanks to the barrier, composed of various strips of Scotch tape, that must be overcome. Sometimes this system is employed purely for snobbish reasons (like the ceremonies of ritual consumption studied by Mauss); all there is, in the end, is a little note that says «hi» (but hours are spent in hunting for it, because the original envelope is the size of a garbage bag, and not everyone has the long arms of a Mr. Hyde).
More often the envelope has a black-mailing function, and also contains a coupon for your reply. The sender is suggesting: «To say what I have to say to you I have spent an outrageous sum of money; the speed of delivery expresses my anxiousness; since there is a prepaid reply, if you don’t answer you are a scoundrel.» Such arrogance deserves punishment. Nowadays I open only the express envelopes that I myself have asked, by telephone, to be sent to me. The others I throw away, but even then they are a nuisance, because they clog up the basket. I dream of carrier pigeons.
Often telegrams and express envelopes announce awards. In this world there are honors and prizes that everyone is pleased to receive (the Nobel, the Golden Fleece, the Garter, the Irish Sweepstakes) and others that require nothing but acceptance. Anyone who has to publicize a new brand of shoe polish, a retarding condom, or some sulfurous mineral water, organizes an award. It is not very easy to get a board of judges together. What’s difficult is to find winners.
That is to say, they could be found easily if the prizes went to young people at the beginning of their career, but in that case press and TV wouldn’t cover the event. So the winner, at the very least, must be Mother Teresa. But if Mother Teresa went to collect all the prizes she is awarded, the death rate in Calcutta would soar. The telegram announcing the prize, therefore, must assume an imperative tone and hint at severe sanctions in the event of refusal: «Happy to inform you that this evening, within one hour, you will be given the Golden Truss stop your presence indispensable in order to receive unanimous vote of unbiased jury otherwise must regretfully honor someone else.» The telegram presupposes that the recipient will leap to his feet, screaming, «No, no! It’s mine! Mine!»
Oh yes, I almost forgot. There are also those postcards that arrive from Kuala Lumpur signed «George.» George who?
1988
How Not to Use the Fax Machine
The fax machine is truly a great invention. For anyone still unfamiliar with it, the fax works like this: you insert a letter, you dial the number of the addressee, and in the space of a few minutes the letter has reached its destination. And the machine isn’t just for letters: it can send drawings, plans, photographs, pages of complicated figures impossible to dictate over the telephone. If the letter is going to Australia, the cost of the transmission is no more than that of an intercontinental call of the same duration. If the letter is being sent from Milan to Saronno, it costs no more than a directly dialed call. And bear in mind that a call from Milan to Paris, in the evening hours, costs about a thousand lire. In a country like ours, where the postal system, by definition, doesn’t work, the fax machine solves all your problems. Another thing many people don’t know is that you can buy a fax for your bedroom, or a portable version for travel, at a reasonable price. Somewhere between a million five and two million lire. A considerable amount for a toy, but a bargain if your work requires you to correspond with many people in many different cities.
Unfortunately, there is one inexorable law of technology, and it is this: when revolutionary inventions become widely accessible, they cease to be accessible. Technology is inherently democratic, because it promises the same services to all; but it works only if the rich are alone in using it. When the poor also adopt technology, it stops working. A train used to take two hours to go from A to B; then the motor car arrived, which could cover the same distance in one hour. For this reason cars were very expensive. But as soon as the masses could afford to buy them, the roads became jammed, and the trains started to move faster. Consider how absurd it is for the authorities constantly to urge people to use public transport, in the age of the automobile; but with public transport, by consenting not to belong to the elite, you get where you’re going before members of the elite do.
In the case of the automobile, before the point of total collapse was reached, many decades went by. The fax machine, more democratic (in fact, it costs much less than a car), achieved collapse in less than a year. At this point it is faster to send something through the mail. Actually, the fax encourages such postal communications. In the old days, if you lived in Medicine Hat, and you had a son in Brisbane, you wrote him once a week and you telephoned him once a month. Now, with the fax, you can send him, in no time, the snapshot of his newborn niece. The temptation is irresistible. Furthermore, the world is inhabited by people, in an ever-increasing number, who want to tell you something that is of no interest to you: how to choose a smarter investment, how to purchase a given object, how to make them happy by sending them a check, how to fulfill yourself completely by taking part in a conference that will improve your professional status. All of these people, the moment they discover you have a fax, and unfortunately there are now fax directories, will trample one another underfoot in their haste to send you, at modest expense, unrequested messages.
As a result, you will approach your fax machine every morning and find it swamped with messages that have accumulated during the night. Naturally, you throw them away without having read them. But suppose someone close to you wants to inform you that you have inherited ten million dollars from an uncle in America, but on condition that you visit a notary before eight o’clock: if the well-meaning friend finds the line busy, you don’t receive the information in time. If someone has to get in touch with you, then, he has to do so by mail. The fax is becoming the medium of trivial messages, just as the automobile has become the means of slow travel, for those who have time to waste and want to spend long hours in gridlocked traffic, listening to Mozart or Dire Straits.
Finally, the fax introduces a new element into the dynamics of nuisance. Until today, the bore, if he wanted to irritate you, paid (for the phone call, the postage stamp, the taxi to bring him to your doorbell). But now you contribute to the expense, because you’re the one who buys the fax paper.
How can you react? I have already had letterhead printed with the warning «Unsolicited faxes are automatically destroyed,» but I don’t think that’s enough. If you want my advice, I’d suggest keeping your fax disconnected. If someone has to send you something, he has to call you first and ask you to connect the machine. Of course, this can overload the telephone line. It would be best for the person who has to send a fax to write you first. Then you can answer, «Send your message via fax Monday at 5.05.27 P.M., Greenwich mean time, when I will connect the machine for precisely four minutes and thirty-six seconds.»
1989
How Not to Use the Cellular Phone
It is easy to take cheap shots at the owners of cellular phones. But before doing so, you should determine to which of the five following categories they belong.
First come the handicapped. Even if their handicap is not visible, they are obliged to keep in constant contact with their doctor or the 24-hour medical service. All praise, then, to the technology that has placed this beneficent instrument at their service. Second come those who, for serious professional reasons, are required to be on call in case of emergency (fire chiefs, general practitioners, organ-transplant specialists always awaiting a fresh corpse, or President Bush, because if he is ever unavailable, the world falls into the hands of Quayle). For them the portable phone is a harsh fact of life, endured, but hardly enjoyed. Third, adulterers. Finally, for the first time in their lives, they are able to receive messages from their secret lover without the risk that family members, secretaries, or malicious colleagues will intercept the call. It suffices that the number be known only to him and her (or to him and him, or to her and her: I can’t think of any other possible combinations). All three categories listed above are entitled to our respect. Indeed, for the first two we are willing to be disturbed even while dining in a restaurant,
