These days I get the feeling that the once ascendent 'Essex man' has passed into decline and is being superceded by a new creature - 'Ethics man'. As someone who likes to feel that action should ideally be preceded by thought as well as gut-reaction, I should perhaps be pleased by this development. But I can't say I am really. I have a strong suspicion that 'Ethics man' is just 'Essex man' switching philosophical poles from irresponsibility to intolerance, an equally compassionless position. The debate about ethical relativism versus moral codes is the usual simplistic polarisation of the issues. On the one hand, many people have difficulty evaluating the rights and wrongs of specific issues, and long for a clearly defined ready-made-formula that can be applied in all situations, relieving them of the strain of making difficult judgements. On the other hand, the absence of a widely accepted benchmark of morality leaves open the door for 'ethical rationalisation' that is little more than a disguise for self-interested self-deception in the judgement of individual issues. The 'codifying' of morality may be better than nothing, but unfortunately before it can be codified an authoritative source of moral wisdom must first be identified. It is hard to think of many individuals who could perform this vital function. The fundamental source of morality is not the head, but the heart, or the conscience if you prefer. In a culture that sneers at, or is at least a little embarrased by, the conscientious heart, specialists in compassion, honesty, thrift and repentance are automatically consigned to the back-burner of public awareness. So how can we construct any moral benchmarks when we shy away from those who should be our best advisors? This is, in my view, one of the ripples of an age old debate. Namely the debate about 'Freedom', how to maintain it, how to increase it, how to constrain it. All humans are necessarily interested in this debate, even if they superficially avoid directly engaging in it because it ultimately defines, not only the limits of everybody's options for action and behaviour, but also the neutral ground where the timid can stand without engaging in conflict. To discuss freedom without mention of responsibility is futile. The two ideas are inextricably linked. Many (mea culpa) have assumed freedom to be the same thing as irresponsibility, acting arbitrarily without having to bear or consider consequences. Nothing could be further from the truth. Irresponsibilty inevitably causes suffering and distress, the result of which is always legislation to constrain the irresponsible behaviour. In other words, if you fail to take responsibility for your own actions, others will impose it on you, they will restrict your freedom. Freedom arises when a people take responsibiltity for their actions. The more they do this, the less need there is for restriction and legislation. Furthermore, the more restriction and legislation there is, the less chance anyone has of practising personal responsibilty, so that in a dictatorship irresponsibility actually increases. Ultimately, Net freedom is no different from any other kind of freedom. The more you abuse it, the more you will lose it. A journalistic misconception about internet technology is that it has created a space which is somehow not part of the world in general. This so-called 'cyberspace' does not exist. What exists is a large number of people at the end of a lot of wires sending electronic signals to each other, a human society communicating in what is undoubtedly a historically and socially important way, but not a morally neutral 'metasociety' that is divorced from the moral and ethical considerations that apply to society in general. When the printing press was invented, the established power of the day was the church, which initially welcomed printing as a blessing of god that would enable the word to be spread far and wide. When printing began to be used for dissemination of ideas the church didn't like, the church changed its mind and tried to suppress unauthorised thought by means of licensing presses. This effort was only partially successful, but over time we can see that bodies of legislation have been created which impose restraints on paper publishing. This differs from country to country, and is continually challenged, imperfect and changing. In this process there are heroes and villains, winners and losers, justice and injustice. Individuals get caught in the wheels of it and get hurt. This history is being played out all over again with the internet. The argument that electronic freedom of speech is beyond regulation is true in the sense that like ordinary crime, it will not cease just because it is restricted or prohibited. There are always loopholes in any system of law because law is rigid and human society is in constant flux. This does not mean however that authorities will throw up their hands in despair and not even try to regulate, or that individual people will not suffer real consequences if they challenge regulatory effort, whether responsibly or not. What does seem to me to be true is that the net is an inseparable part of human society, and therefore cannot avoid becoming a mirror of it. As internet activity becomes more and more significant in the daily processes of human life, so the age old conflicts of humanity will increasingly play themselves out in this electronic arena. What happens on the net may affect everybody's real lives as much as the phone call from the police, the final demand through the letterbox or the chance meeting in the pub. The brief dream that some had of the internet as a 'responsibility free zone' is vanishing. Whether it can actually become a vehicle for freedom will be a test of the maturity of all our cultures.

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