That sentence sounded to me like he was making a reference to something. Just picking fax machines (of all technologies) for no good reason seems arbitrary and strange.
I would pick TV. Revolutions always have a myriad of causes and a myriad of factors that help or hinder them, a technology alone is never enough to bring down a dictatorship. I do think, though, that technologies can help revolutions and maybe even be the one deciding factor that makes them successful.
Take the peaceful German revolution in 1989: East Germans weren’t hungry, they weren’t even poor, they weren’t unemployed and their tyrants were, as tyrants go, relatively mild. But East Germans could watch West German TV and compare, see that West Germans were richer, had more choice, more chances, more freedoms and more attractive holiday destinations. Would there have been the same mass demonstrations without West German TV, without information from the West?
The trigger of the fall of the Berlin Wall itself was of course famously also East and West German TV and radio [2].
[1] Is this a correct usage of “anachronistic”? I got quite confused as to whether it is, searched around and eventually gave up.
[2] In 1989, the East German regime wanted to slowly and in a controlled fashion open the border for their own citizens because of continued mass demonstrations and pressure from abroad. The plan to do so was announced on November 9 at a press conference. Asked when the new rules would come into force, a member of the Politbüro said erroneously that they would come into force immediately. West German TV and radio quickly spread the news that the Wall was open and because of the masses of people coming to the Wall it was actually really open that same evening. Wikipedia has a longer writeup: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall#The_Fall
It would be anachronistic [1] and no dictatorship was actually brought down but maybe he is referring to this: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,957964,00.h...
I would pick TV. Revolutions always have a myriad of causes and a myriad of factors that help or hinder them, a technology alone is never enough to bring down a dictatorship. I do think, though, that technologies can help revolutions and maybe even be the one deciding factor that makes them successful.
Take the peaceful German revolution in 1989: East Germans weren’t hungry, they weren’t even poor, they weren’t unemployed and their tyrants were, as tyrants go, relatively mild. But East Germans could watch West German TV and compare, see that West Germans were richer, had more choice, more chances, more freedoms and more attractive holiday destinations. Would there have been the same mass demonstrations without West German TV, without information from the West?
The trigger of the fall of the Berlin Wall itself was of course famously also East and West German TV and radio [2].
[1] Is this a correct usage of “anachronistic”? I got quite confused as to whether it is, searched around and eventually gave up.
[2] In 1989, the East German regime wanted to slowly and in a controlled fashion open the border for their own citizens because of continued mass demonstrations and pressure from abroad. The plan to do so was announced on November 9 at a press conference. Asked when the new rules would come into force, a member of the Politbüro said erroneously that they would come into force immediately. West German TV and radio quickly spread the news that the Wall was open and because of the masses of people coming to the Wall it was actually really open that same evening. Wikipedia has a longer writeup: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall#The_Fall