The Fellowship of the Net

Abstract

The article revisits the tradition of religious socialism as a potential resource for the information age. It begins with a detailed exposition and defence of the ideas of network society theorist Manuel Castells. However, the article questions Castells’ reliance on contemporary social movements as a response to what he calls the bipolar opposition between the net and the self. Arguing for a more universal and ontological solution, it seeks to reappropriate the nineteenth-century Christian socialism of Maurice, Ludlow and Kingsley, specifically their powerful doctrine of mere brotherhood. Updated as the fellowship of the net, the brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind under the fatherhood of God turns into an attractive and plausible twenty-first century ideal.