Once you begin to think about it, declaring the independence of cyberspace - as John Perry Barlow did (Wired 2.06, page 41) - seems a pretty analogue thing to do, equating cyberspace with 18th-century America. That is why Barlow's organisation is called the Electronic Frontier Foundation, why he likens himself to Thomas Jefferson and why he says things like, "If Exon passes, it will be the Stamp Act of cyberspace. We'll have to have a lot of Boston Tea Parties."
Now, Barlow is an awesomely talented guy. But as any psychiatrist will tell you, each of us colours objective reality with our own psychic palettes. Americans - even those who, like Barlow, don't much care for the US government - inevitably project certain values onto the outside world, because their mental landscapes have been formed in a particular way. The revolutionary liberation theme is one of the most durable American myths; anyone who grew up in the US during the '70s remembers the rejoicing cartoon patriots of the Boston Tea Party from Schoolhouse Rock. So for Americans, comparing Congress to George III and cyberspace to colonial America is as normal as, well, comparing normal things to apple pie.
But it is also wrong. Cyberspace is nothing like the pre-Revolutionary American colonies or the Wild West. It is, in fact, rather more like England. From base to superstructure, the Internet works by compromise, consensus and gradual evolution - just like English society, with its unwritten constitution, precedent-driven common law and institutionalised tolerance of eccentricity.
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which decides the technical protocols that make the Internet run (and is the closest thing the Net has to a governing body), lives in the best traditions of British amateurism. A truly American culture would long ago have tried to write a constitution for the IETF, and would have put professional management in place. But instead the IETF shambles from consensus to compromise, focusing on whatever works best at the time. Its working motto is, "We reject: kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code." Substitute Runnymede for running code, and you'd almost have the Magna Carta.
The Net has also evolved the electronic equivalents of England's elaborate codes of behaviour. Like English manners, netiquette derives from a very practical need to make a social space work. True, people don't apologise as much on newsgroups as they do on the Tube. On the contrary, the typical Underground exchange - "Sorry." "No, no. I'm sorry." "No, really. I'm very sorry" - is likely to translate on the Net into, "Fuck you." "No, no. Fuck you." "No, really...." But the general principle remains the same: such rituals make complicated behaviour predictable, and the Net's greatest wrath is reserved for those individuals who flout the rules, rather than those who merely flame and flame alike.
Of course, the Englishness of cyberspace is not an entirely good thing. We could do without the pedantry and pessimism that sometimes seem as endemic to HotWired threads as to Holyhead. What is often called conservatism in English culture is really smugness and pragmatism - Americans say, "Change is good," while the English say, "Change is often necessary."
For better or for worse, the geeks of cyberspace, like the English, would rather create a work- around than pick a fight. But if there is going to be a fight - and it will take more than the US Congress passing a naive, unenforceable law to provoke one - the citizens of cyberspace will react rather like the English did the last time their precious Albion was really threatened. They will not dress up in American Indian costumes to chuck tea into harbours. Like Dunkirk's small ships, a flotilla of small computers will do what it takes to win; they will then go back to the accounting and word processing of normal life, just as the small ships slopped out the debris and returned to fishing. The inhabitants of cyberspace will simply try to get on with their own business for as long as they can, and if this proves impossible, will stop at nothing to wipe out their adversary, though the odds may be overwhelmingly against them. Forget the cavalry, old boy; the English are here.
Matthew Doull was until recently associate publisher of Wired UK. He is now vice president of technology for Hollinger International.