Comments on
Chapter 8: “If We Succeed, We Will Disappear”
This story about Raymond tickled my fancy.
That is all.
precisely in terms of modifying the structures (and infrastructures) by which culture flows: copyright licenses, software for sharing, modes of interacting and cooperating on-line… etc. This is the point also of the “recursive” in recursive publics… that it isn’t just the “cultural objects” themselves that matter, but the infrastructures by which they are expressed and circulated…
Hi Eaddy, Christopher –
In response to your comments, Eaddy, and to the notion of collective authorship in general: I think that history has given us a few examples of where collective authorship has been accepted, openly, over time. Political and legislative documents, the American Constitution for one, are given added reverance as collective documents – perhaps under the hopes that more voices lead to a greater sense of representation and inclusiveness within the meaning of a text.
Beyond that example, one of the most prevalent texts in the Western world, what we consider “The Bible,” has been proven by scholars to be the work of several “authors.” And, though the Bible is scrutinized and questioned for many diverse reasons, we rarely hear of scrutiny based on the multiplicity of authors. I am by no means a biblical scholar, but In retrospect, the nature of the work is appreciated as a text and not doubted based on authorship.
Perhaps, with time, the notion of collective authorship isn’t of great concern to a recursive public, as it is through the multiplicity of voices that further elaboration and inclusion is manifested.
Hello Mr. Kelty,
After reading your Introduction, Chapter 8 and comments I am definitely more intrigued by the concept of ‘Free Software’ and more specifically, the project of Connexions. First of all, I noticed that you mentioned in your reply to one of the post’s that Vietnam’s government has adopted the Connexions method as a ‘platform’ for its use in the educational sector. I think this is fantastic opportunity for Vietnam to engage in promoting education in a modern way as well as providing outlets for widespread information sharing and knowledge for its students. I imagine that this was a big step for Vietnam, perhaps culturally? This point led me to think of questions concerning the lack of access as well as restrictions placed on the Internet and information sharing by some countries. I know Connexions is perceived as a ‘global’ project but what does this mean for the future of free software and freedom of expression with regard to countries such as China and North Korea or even to those who do not have access to the Internet at all? Do you believe this project will be able to affect or change these mentalities and national identities or even lessen the ‘digital divide’? I do agree with your point that ‘the fact that recursive publics respond in this way- through direct engagement and modification- is a key aspect of the reorientation of power and knowledge that Free Software exemplifies’, however, is it because of this ‘power’ and ‘knowledge’ that Connexions might not be promoted in certain cultures? Finally, I also really enjoyed your discussion about Lessigs Creative Common’s motto, ‘culture builds on the past…and that it need not be difficult to do so.’ (Chapter 8, p 55.) It can be argued that it is equally important to look to the past for inspiration, as it is to look to the future for new ideas and solutions and I do believe that collaboration is indeed a positive step forward.
You may speak of these issues elsewhere in your book, however any comments of some of these questions would be greatly appreciated! Thank you for your time,
Sophie.
To build on your discussion of culture, in the Introduction, you write “by culture, I mean an ongoing experimental system, a space of modification and modulation, of figuring out and testing; culture is an experiment that is hard to keep an eye on, one that changes quickly and sometimes starkly…” and discuss Free Software as a cultural practice. Thinking of culture as something that “builds on the past” seems to subscribe more to the idea that culture is a less dynamic complex whole. Clearly with ICTs, we see unprecedented flows of cultural objects (texts, sounds and images), but how does Free Software and Connexions change the pre-existing dynamic landscape of cultural flows?
Hi Mr. Kelty,
I am another AUP student. After reading your introduction and Chapter 8, I am really curious about the nature of the Connexions textbook.
How do you go about ensuring that an open/free-software textbook has more credibility than a wikipedia-type resource? Are there any limits to who can modulate the software? Who determines whether a person is a competent enough scholar to contribute? How does subjectivity factor into the larger work? If people can view various versions of the website, is there any concern that the most current version is not the most “correct” and that people who know little about the subject will be left in the dark? To what extent does reliance on a particular language, presumably English, hinder the level of open-ness that you are able to achieve?
You mentioned that subjects in the humanities do not factor well into the factory modules. Perhaps there is a potential for a humanities recursive public to modulate various interpretations of works of art or literature. As an English and Art History major, I agree with you that these subjects tend to require less linear forms of scholarship. Still, there is great potential to build up on the interdisciplinary nature of English and history, or art history and science, such as the laws of perspective or emerging awareness of correct anatomical drawing.
Finally, do you think the larger recursive public will be able to fully accept the notion of collaborative authorship? That is, will there be enough scholars willing to create valuable content in favor of the greater good, even if their individual name gets lost in the public sphere?
Connexions sounds like a fascinating operation and I hope it works out!
Hi Mr. Kelty,
After reading your introduction and Chapter 8, I am really curious about the nature of the Connexions textbook.
How do you go about ensuring that an open/free-software textbook has more credibility than a wikipedia-type resource? Are there any limits to who can modulate the software? Who determines whether a person is a competent enough scholar to contribute? How does subjectivity factor into the larger work? If people can view various versions of the website, is there any concern that the most current version is not the most “correct” and that people who know little about the subject will be left in the dark? To what extent does reliance on a particular language, presumably English, hinder the level of open-ness that you are able to achieve?
You mentioned that subjects in the humanities do not factor well into the factory modules. Perhaps there is a potential for a humanities recursive public to modulate various interpretations of works of art or literature. As an English and Art History major, I agree with you that these subjects tend to require less linear forms of scholarship. Still, there is great potential to build up on the interdisciplinary nature of English and history, or art history and science, such as the laws of perspective or emerging awareness of correct anatomical drawing.
Finally, do you think the larger recursive public will be able to fully accept the notion of collaborative authorship? That is, will there be enough scholars willing to create valuable content in favor of the greater good, even if their individual name gets lost in the public sphere?
Britney also said this:
In Chapter 8 you mention that what often fascinates people about Connexions “is the idea of random and flexible connection”(253), the ability for users to create new modules and cross subjects. In your description of the experiment in Ch. 8, however you do not address if this also incorporates cross-cultural studies and how this experiment could be used on a global level. Do you think a collaborative textbook based on the principles of Free Software would have the possibility of creating education material that whose aims would be more cosmopolitan and multicultural? Since education is often considered a means for controlling national identity would you agree that experiments like Connexions help to change this structure and formation of identity.
And the answer is yes…Connexions is explicitly conceived as a global project. However, since it is not the project of any particular government or corporation, it is not designed with any particular national identity in mind… though one could a) use for any national project and b) argue that it reflects Euro-American values in its design. I think the latter is true, in that the very ideas of “culture building on the past” arise out of notions of constitutional right, intellectual property, and authorial control that are specific (if variable) to the US and Europe.
A good counter comparison might be this:
Archive created to allow Aborigines in Australia to control the circulation of their own culture. If you can understand the differences between that project and Connexions, you can see some of the ways in which these projects carry assumptions about culture with them.
I really enjoyed the discussion on how Creative Commons builds upon Lessig’s idea that “Culture always builds on the past”. I think that these types of licenses that allow artists, professors etc. build upon existent material is crucial because it is how these texts (in the sense of all visual, verbal and written material) evolve and are re-appropriated to by their innovative users and often assigning other contexts than the original. Therefore these texts are not buried in the past but sustained. They become a source of inspiration and encourage creativity.
In Chapter 8 you mention that what often fascinates people about Connexions “is the idea of random and flexible connection”(253), the ability for users to create new modules and cross subjects. In your description of the experiment in Ch. 8, however you do not address if this also incorporates cross-cultural studies and how this experiment could be used on a global level. Do you think a collaborative textbook based on the principles of Free Software would have the possibility of creating education material that whose aims would be more cosmopolitan and multicultural? Since education is often considered a means for controlling national identity would you agree that experiments like Connexions help to change this structure and formation of identity.
@laurel,
Certainly I think the people who run Connexions think it can be used for exactly this purpose. And it is: Vietnam’s government has adopted it as a platform for education, and the Shuttleworth foundation has also decided to use it for work related to education in Africa. the open educational resources community in general is devoted to issues of development and the impacts of globalization, and sees tools like this as one route towards improving dialogue and participation.
In some ways, this is an issue that results from a changed relationship between individuals and the nation-state. Nation-states in many parts of the world are failures when it comes to education or provision of public goods (like the United States for instance)… and so projects like Connexions are experiences as “public” solutions that pick up the slack. In other places (e.g. Brazil) there is more government involvement, and they can see Connexions as a way to deliver on the promises they have already made.
As for whether such projects are the solution to Appadurai’s disjuctive flows, I think the answer is a partial yes… they provide a solid infrastructure that could be a basis for bringing academics and grassroots people together, but it is only a small part of what would be necessary. There are as aspects of collaboration and coordination (chapter 7) that are really hard to solve, to say nothing of the raw issues of economic need that confront both grass-roots organizations and academics… so when interests align, and there is a political will and an economic base… then projects like Connexions are there to make it work. The problem is when people see something like Connexions or Free Software as THE solution to problems that are significantly more complicated…
> Hello Mr. Kelty,
>
> I am writing in response to paragraphs 32 &33 in Chapter 8, as well as some general comments. Just to preface, I am one of many of Professor Bernard Geoghegan’s graduate students at the American University of Paris that will be writing to you within the next week in response to Chapter 8 of your book.
>
> Firstly, after reading your introduction and this chapter, I did indeed experience the excitement and “conversion” that you talk about in regards to free software. I am among others who are interested in how this ideology can be applied to other fields.
>
> Recently, I also read an article by Arjun Appadurai on Grassroots Globalization (from his book, Globalization). In his article he is basically discussing the dissonance between academics and grassroots advocacy groups that are trying to overcome some of the economic and discriminatory implications that are arising out of globalization (what he calls disjunctive flows). He basically then calls for a knowledge community where scholars and non-scholars can collaborate on the subject of globalization. As I was reading this, I immediately thought of your text and the Connexions project. Is Connexions or a similar platform the type of interface, in your opinion, that could be used for such a collective knowlege project on the subject of globalization? Do you believe that a global community of collective knowledge is possible, and that a merge between academics and groups such as these advocacy groups is possible on such an interface?
>
> If so, what continued ramifications (if any) do you think this will have on the nation-state? I know you refer to Habermas, and his theory on the public sphere. This is something our program (Masters in Global Communications) disusses in depth. In particular, we have been discussing Globalization in relation to the financial crisis-and what this is doing to the nation state. To me, it seems in wake of the current financial crisis, in the U.S. people are more paralleled in relation to Benedict Anderson’s theory on the nation-state. Similar to after 9/11, it seems people imagine a unity of the country and a feeling of community, in these times of crisis-and feel that as a collective they are having these experiences of community that Anderson references. I would think that the Internet serves as a tool for this feeling of shared experience, through online news sources.
>
> I would love to hear your thoughts on any of these topics, thank you for your time.
Hello Mr. Kelty,
I am writing in response to paragraphs 32 &33 in Chapter 8, as well as some general comments. Just to preface, I am one of many of Professor Bernard Geoghegan’s graduate students at the American University of Paris that will be writing to you within the next week in response to Chapter 8 of your book.
Firstly, after reading your introduction and this chapter, I did indeed experience the excitement and “conversion” that you talk about in regards to free software. I am among others who are interested in how this ideology can be applied to other fields.
Recently, I also read an article by Arjun Appadurai on Grassroots Globalization (from his book, Globalization). In his article he is basically discussing the dissonance between academics and grassroots advocacy groups that are trying to overcome some of the economic and discriminatory implications that are arising out of globalization (what he calls disjunctive flows). He basically then calls for a knowledge community where scholars and non-scholars can collaborate on the subject of globalization. As I was reading this, I immediately thought of your text and the Connexions project. Is Connexions or a similar platform the type of interface, in your opinion, that could be used for such a collective knowlege project on the subject of globalization? Do you believe that a global community of collective knowledge is possible, and that a merge between academics and groups such as these advocacy groups is possible on such an interface?
If so, what continued ramifications (if any) do you think this will have on the nation-state? I know you refer to Habermas, and his theory on the public sphere. This is something our program (Masters in Global Communications) disusses in depth. In particular, we have been discussing Globalization in relation to the financial crisis-and what this is doing to the nation state. To me, it seems in wake of the current financial crisis, in the U.S. people are more paralleled in relation to Benedict Anderson’s theory on the nation-state. Similar to after 9/11, it seems people imagine a unity of the country and a feeling of community, in these times of crisis-and feel that as a collective they are having these experiences of community that Anderson references. I would think that the Internet serves as a tool for this feeling of shared experience, through online news sources.
I would love to hear your thoughts on any of these topics, thank you for your time.
Jaron’s second comment didn’t show up here, so I’ll re-post it:
In paragraph 44, you mention the 1976 Copyright Act (I allude to this in an earlier post). What you don’t mention here is the added power it gave corporations, so, from my understanding, authors lost some of their rights to Random House, for example, and this is criticized for discouraging creativity. I see this as a main problem with copyrights today. What are your thoughts on this? Perhaps you talk about this elsewhere. I’m just curious to know if you have any thoughts.”
The 1976 Copyright Act didn’t give corporations the right to own copyrights (they’ve had that right, as I understand it, since they were defined as persons in the late 19th century). However, it did extend the length of the copyright. But I would need to check the details of the act to remember what exactly it added.
The parts I focus on (in Chapter 6) are about the formalization of fair use, the removal of a rght to register (which was a major impetus for Creative Commons), and the inclusion of software (in 1980).
In paragraph 44, you mention the 1976 Copyright Act (I allude to this in an earlier post). What you don’t mention here is the added power it gave corporations, so, from my understanding, authors lost some of their rights to Random House, for example, and this is criticized for discouraging creativity. I see this as a main problem with copyrights today. What are your thoughts on this? Perhaps you talk about this elsewhere. I’m just curious to know if you have any thoughts.
Hello Mr. Kelty,
I am writing in response to paragraphs 32 &33 in Chapter 8, as well as some general comments. Just to preface, I am one of many of Professor Bernard Geoghegan’s graduate students at the American University of Paris that will be writing to you within the next week in response to Chapter 8 of your book.
Firstly, after reading your introduction and this chapter, I did indeed experience the excitement and “conversion” that you talk about in regards to free software. I am among others who are interested in how this ideology can be applied to other fields.
Recently, I also read an article by Arjun Appadurai on Grassroots Globalization (from his book, Globalization). In his article he is basically discussing the dissonance between academics and grassroots advocacy groups that are trying to overcome some of the economic and discriminatory implications that are arising out of globalization (what he calls disjunctive flows). He basically then calls for a knowledge community where scholars and non-scholars can collaborate on the subject of globalization. As I was reading this, I immediately thought of your text and the Connexions project. Is Connexions or a similar platform the type of interface, in your opinion, that could be used for such a collective knowlege project on the subject of globalization? Do you believe that a global community of collective knowledge is possible, and that a merge between academics and groups such as these advocacy groups is possible on such an interface?
If so, what continued ramifications (if any) do you think this will have on the nation-state? I know you refer to Habermas, and his theory on the public sphere. This is something our program (Masters in Global Communications) disusses in depth. In particular, we have been discussing Globalization in relation to the financial crisis-and what this is doing to the nation state. To me, it seems in wake of the current financial crisis, in the U.S. people are more paralleled in relation to Benedict Anderson’s theory on the nation-state. Similar to after 9/11, it seems people imagine a unity of the country and a feeling of community, in these times of crisis-and feel that as a collective they are having these experiences of community that Anderson references. I would think that the Internet serves as a tool for this feeling of shared experience, through online news sources.
I would love to hear your thoughts on any of these topics, thank you for your time.
There were seven men, not 4, and they were all senior academics, except me. None of them were oblivious–indeed, I would say they were, as senior academics charged with improving the ratio of women to men in engineering and computer science, hyper-aware of the situation. As I said, they thought it was rude and tasteless, but not actionable, though I recall some vigorous discussion of it after the fact. In addition, I actually think the woman in question would be seriously offended by your characterization of her as helpless and assaulted. She was powerful, smart and funny, but unfortunately, like a lot of geeks, besotted with the high profile personalities in the open source/free software movement– she simply wanted to talk to Raymond. She wasn’t there as some kind of token female, she was there because she forced her way, quite effectively, into what otherwise would have been an all-male dinner, making it, as I implied in the book, an all-but-one-male dinner and quite familiar as a result. If I recall correctly, she was not invited to dinner, but when she asked if there was space (which there wasn’t), was warmly welcomed by the organizers.
She is not named because she was neither a public figure nor did I interview her formally, so she remains anonymous for good anthropological reasons. I never saw her again after this dinner. There are plenty of other people in the book who appear in similarly limited form who are not named, male and female.
I cited the Light piece, along with others you didn’t bother to notice. I also think you need to take seriously my contention that exclusion is not the problem here. All of the literature on gender and hacking, and much of the literature on gender and engineering is very clear on the subtle ways in which interaction is weighted culturally to give advantage to boys schooled in certain ways of interacting. This is not a controversial point, and it’s just lame to assume I’m ignorant of it. But this is well known not only to academics but especially to those men running computer science departments and free software projects, desperate to increase the number of women at every level. At this point in the history, it just doesn’t help anymore to accuse people like me or people in free software projects of ignorance… if there really is a problem, it must be something else. The only other way to explain it is that we really are truly evil, or that we are genetically encoded to allow sexual harassment to take place. Whatever the problem is, it’s not ignorance.
Of course she appeared to be enjoying it. If she had appeared not to be, what would have happened to her, given that she was the only woman at the table and the other three men appeared oblivious? Please, Dr. Kelty, please take a few minutes to walk in her shoes.
Coming on to a woman in a professional or semi-professional context (which this clearly was) is more than rude or tasteless, Dr. Kelty; it is harassment, even if it’s not legally actionable (which this wouldn’t be). Allowing it to happen without so much as comment is not innocent, nor should it be acceptable.
Exclusion happens when women like this do not even receive the courtesy of a name when mentioned in a book such as this. Exclusion happens when women like this are treated as women first, hackers second, and nobody so much as blinks. I’m dismayed that an anthropologist, of all people, is having trouble seeing this.
There’s a long history here, mostly though not entirely unchronicled, and as you seem to be ignorant of it, I’ll suggest you start with the Women in Linux HOWTO, continue with Light’s wonderful article “When Computers Were Women,” and top that off with Andrea Rubinstein’s excellent blog at blog.shrub.com.
1. Please read it again. It does not say anywhere there that he sexually harassed her. Not even by the most generous definition of harassment can you infer that it occurred in this case. I’m no fan of Raymond, and no fan of the gender imbalance in hacker circles, but I did not “allow sexual harassment to occur” and I don’t appreciate being so accused. He hit on a woman at dinner, we all (with the exception of the woman, who appeared very much to be enjoying herself) thought it was rude and tasteless, but I doubt anyone would have thought it was reasonable to stop it from happening.
2. The book addresses the issue of gender in chapter 1. see especially footnote 19. If it were only an issue of “inclusion” then whatever problem you have (and can you actually identify what the problem is… because if you can, I want to hear it and so do tens of thousands of geeks), then it might be easily solved. Exclusion, however, is not the problem.
So Eric Raymond sexually harasses a woman, the only woman present at the table, and not only does this not appear to bother you, Dr. Kelty, it doesn’t suggest anything to you about who is excluded from your “recursive public”?
Shame on you for allowing that to happen, sir. Double shame on you for reporting it in a tone of tolerant amusement. Triple shame on you for not even asking what that event says about the constitution of your “recursive public,” who is excluded from it, and why.
