Kwinter's ideal of a critical, humane, off-line culture would be stronger if it were on-line as well. Perhaps the monasteries must send out missionaries. Universities can't be wholly on or off that line.
If there were more complex and resistant hypertexts their habits of reading and writing and critical judgment could not be limited to on-line situations. But on-line the immediate gratification of the turn off, the kill file, or the flame war might sometimes be replaced or supplemented by the careful construction of alternatives that called for discussion and judgment. Those alternatives might be arguments, or they might be constructed networks of text and image, or virtual worlds. Methods of comment and questioning might be direct, or they might be the reconstruction of the networks or worlds. Readers and writers would be less passive consumers.