High Octane Troll Food

Recently, I've been reading a lot about a simple experiment that's getting a lot of press. This experiment seems so simple, in fact, that many people assume that it must be terribly subtle and complex. It isn't. This experiment Wikipedia seems complex only because it ignores tradition and common sense. Tradition, after all argues that decisions are best left to experts. Wikipedia however is based on the idea that experts should not be the only "gatekeepers" of information. That information should be "free" not like free as in beer but like without confinement or gates.

Unsurprisingly, many experts hate this idea. Encyclopedia Britannica's very public fight with Wikipedia is one of the most public and telling examples. However other examples are present in both print and blogs across the web. The blogs of the free range librarian are another example of the genre. In one post she writes:

"In Wikipedia's current manifestation, all contributors are on equal footing in terms of editing power and authority (and that's not even getting into the issue of scope; Wikipedia is built haphazardly, like building a library by buying the first fifty books you find walking into Borders). With no editorial workflow, no significant mechanisms for (and no emphasis on) acknowledging authority, and no way to give expertise its due, Wikipedia functions primarily as high-octane troll food, fueling lengthy "Lord of the Flies"-style shout-downs between, on the one hand, cranks and malcontents, and on the other, the vastly outnumbered experts who care to be bothered to contribute in the first place."

In short, she contends that Wikipedia's dependence on primarily knowledge renders it unreliable. The implication is that Wikipedia cannot be considered reliable until it mirrors the librarian's respect for expertise. Professor Paul Cartledge of Cambridge University perfectly encapsulates the distrust of the masses at the base of this type of criticism when he says that academics:

"…deny specifically that the sort of knowledge available to and used by ordinary people, popular knowledge if you like, is really knowledge at all. At best it is merely opinion, and almost always it is ill-informed and wrong."

Professor Cartledge, however was not referring to Wikipedia at all. This excerpt actually refers to the criticism that many academics in Athens shared regarding this idea called Democracy.

Aristotle and Plato, to name but two of the most famous names, considered the ability to govern to be beyond the ability of the common man. The masses could not be trusted. They could be too easily led down dangerous and foolish paths. Demagogues skillful in rhetoric could shift the direction of a nation on a whim.

Government was too important an institution to leave in the hands of the governed. Plato and Aristotle's criticisms like those of their spiritual descendants were eloquent. But, this idea although simple and counterintuitive, was powerful. Democracy was attempted over and over again. Eventually this idea would change the world in ways that no one could have imagined.

 

 

Schneider, K. G. "Free Range Librarian." 22 Mar. 2007

http://freerangelibrarian.com/archives/052905/wikipedia.php

 

Strenski, Ellen, comp. "The Wikipedia/Encyclopaedia Britannica Controversy." University of California, Irvine. 22 Mar. 2007 -http://compositioncafe.com/25950/wikicontroversy.html-.

Cartledge, Paul. "Critics and Critiques of Athenian Democracy". BBC. 22 Mar. 2007 http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks/greekcritics_01.shtml

Cartledge, Paul. "Critics and Critiques of Athenian Democracy". BBC. 22 Mar. 2007 http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks/greekdemocracy_01.shtml

 

Steal ThisBlog

Art is either plagiarism or revolution.

Paul Gauguin

French Post-Impressionist painter (1848 - 1903)

 

Two things happened this week that birthed a thought churning in my gut. First, tragically a few days ago Baudrillard died of cancer. In many ways, he and Umberto Eco framed my first thoughts on the place of copies and originals in reality. Exposure to his thinking influenced my ideas of the real and the hyperreal. Thinking about him again helped me to discover a flaw in my thinking. A few posts ago I asked who gets to determine reality. That was the wrong question. The right question didn't occur to me until a professor Wayne State University brought up Boswell and his dictionary. It made me think of the arguments that Boswell had with ????? about the evolution of language. I realized then that increasingly an assumption is being made, an assumption that "information wants to be free". This assumption is at the heart of documents like the Bellagio Declaration. Scores of bloggers like Laura at Laurablog and the entire team at Stay Free! serve to document the gradual awakening of Western Society to this fact. Although this statement can be heard more and more frequently, few understand its implications. Information has always found a way to make itself free. No matter the obstacle or the condition Information always finds ways of replicating and evolving. This isn't idealism or wishful thinking. It is an observation of history. When print is nonexistent oral traditions spring up. When the transmission of information is suppressed, it is smuggled like the art of Florence before Savranola or schoolbooks in the slave quarters of the antebellum south. It transforms itself like the navigation codes disguised as spirituals sung in the plantations of the south. Other examples are easily seen if you choose to look. Another truism is that past patterns are the best indicators of future performance. For further confirmation read the two page article in Wired in Jan 1994. In this article Rebecca E. Zorach points out some of the parallels between modern techy society and that of the Medieval monastic society. Whether the holders of the information be analog or digital, western or eastern, monastic or hedonist information always spreads and always evolves.

 

Digital Windmills

My last few posts, have tried to address some of the issues voiced by Lawrence Lessig's book Freeculture. This is in no small part due to Lessig's eloquence as a speaker and charming writing style. His ability, unfortunately, far too rare among lecturers allows him to make potentially dull subjects interesting and interesting subjects riveting. Accordingly, I have been greatly enjoying this book and was looking forward to his conclusion. I was certain that the conclusion of this story would share the rational and insightful tone that despite the grim tone consistently comprised the lion share of this work.

Perhaps, this explains why the change in Lessig's tone when recounting the Eldred case and its aftermath was so affecting. Initially, I thought I was merely reacting to the self flagellating tone that increased as he recounted his disappointments. I realized that I was reacting to more than that. In his conclusion, Lessig shares his disillusionment with a system that has been very good to him. This disillusionment reminds us of an important lesson. Although, we may be able to listen to the audio of this case or read an analysis of it. This case is about both far more and far less than abstract theories abour ones and zeros. This is about the actions of individuals. A Wired Article published before the Eldred case perhaps provides the most important lesson Professor Lessig can offer the reader.

From the outside, it seems that Larry Lessig's existence has been privileged. Nice upbringing. Ivy League education, then Cambridge and top law schools. The best clerkships. Tenured law professor. And now an acclaimed author, speaker, and, ultimately, Supreme Court litigator. Yet he doesn't see it that way at all. "I always feel I should have been better at each of those steps. I bring to it this expectation that there's a lot more somebody else could have done."

"So far I've lost, lost at every level."

Yet he continues to try.

Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture. New York: Penguin Books, 2004.

Levy, Steven. "Lawrence Lessig's Supreme Showdown." Wired 10 Oct. 2002. 1 Mar. 2007 <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.10/lessig.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=>.