I ran across this today
I ran across this today, and thought I'd share. While this short essay is actually in direct response to another essay that critizes Wikipedia, and other online collaborative works, I think the content of this particular piece can stand on its own, and can be applied a bit more broadly.
"I have a hard time fearing that the participants of Wikipedia or even the call-in voters of American Idol will be in a position to remake the social order anytime, soon. And I'm concerned that any argument against collaborative activity look fairly at the real reasons why some efforts turn out the way they do. Our fledgling collective intelligences are not emerging in a vacuum, but on media platforms with very specific biases.
First off, we can't go on pretending that even our favorite disintermediation efforts are revolutions in any real sense of the word. Projects like Wikipedia do not overthrow any elite at all, but merely replace one elite - in this case an academic one - with another: the interactive media elite...
While it may be true that a large number of current websites and group projects contain more content aggregation (links) than original works (stuff), that may as well be a critique of the entirety of Western culture since post-modernism. I'm as tired as anyone of art and thought that exists entirely in the realm of context and reference - but you can't blame Wikipedia for architecture based on winks to earlier eras or a music culture obsessed with sampling old recordings instead of playing new compositions.
Honestly, the loudest outcry over our Internet culture's inclination towards re-framing and the "meta" tend to come from those with the most to lose in a society where "credit" is no longer a paramount concern. Most of us who work in or around science and technology understand that our greatest achievements are not personal accomplishments but lucky articulations of collective realizations. Something in the air... Claiming authorship is really just a matter of ego and royalties."
By Douglas Rushkoff
Additional responses and context for this essay can be found here
"I have a hard time fearing that the participants of Wikipedia or even the call-in voters of American Idol will be in a position to remake the social order anytime, soon. And I'm concerned that any argument against collaborative activity look fairly at the real reasons why some efforts turn out the way they do. Our fledgling collective intelligences are not emerging in a vacuum, but on media platforms with very specific biases.
First off, we can't go on pretending that even our favorite disintermediation efforts are revolutions in any real sense of the word. Projects like Wikipedia do not overthrow any elite at all, but merely replace one elite - in this case an academic one - with another: the interactive media elite...
While it may be true that a large number of current websites and group projects contain more content aggregation (links) than original works (stuff), that may as well be a critique of the entirety of Western culture since post-modernism. I'm as tired as anyone of art and thought that exists entirely in the realm of context and reference - but you can't blame Wikipedia for architecture based on winks to earlier eras or a music culture obsessed with sampling old recordings instead of playing new compositions.
Honestly, the loudest outcry over our Internet culture's inclination towards re-framing and the "meta" tend to come from those with the most to lose in a society where "credit" is no longer a paramount concern. Most of us who work in or around science and technology understand that our greatest achievements are not personal accomplishments but lucky articulations of collective realizations. Something in the air... Claiming authorship is really just a matter of ego and royalties."
By Douglas Rushkoff
Additional responses and context for this essay can be found here