The Blithedale Neuromance

Crossread with Hawthorne’s 1852 tale “The Blithedale Romance,” mankind is in for “an era that would link soul to soul,” i.e. an age where humans via the neurotechnical device of the biochip turn into Gibsonian neuromancers, and “melt into one great, mutually conscious brotherhood.” Despite all its technological feasibility, however, the idea of a United State of neuronally interconnected communitarians has as yet remained mere theory, and thus mirrors the essay’s own dilemma: lofty (media) theory here, questions of practicality there.