I loved Siva Vaidhyanathan’s last book, Copyrights and Copywrongs. It’s a superb excellent intellectual and cultural history and critique of copyright policy.
His new book, Anarchist in the Library isn’t up to his standards. “Anarchist” tries to draw a connection between the spread of peer to peer file-sharing, peer cultural creation, and political anarchy.
The analogy is thin, though. Anarchism is a deliberate political philosophy that opposes central government. My guess is that most file-sharers aren’t making a political statement, they just want access to music.
The bigger problem with defining file-sharing as anarchy is that it focuses on what’s absent — central control; rather than what is present — strong and shifting networks of cultural influence.
After a brief historical period dominated by mass media, we’re seeing a revival of folk culture, with new forms of peer cultural sharing and creation — file sharing, blogging, mashups. The trend has been growing since the advent of cheap photocopiers and cheap videocameras, and accelerating with cheap distribution and improved tools for sharing taste and collaborating.
The portrayal of culture as anarchy is a Romantic notion, shaped by the ideal of the artists as lone rebels or dissident cliques. That concept itself is the result of the mass media dominance. Artists see themselves as an embattled minority, then their work gets co-opted into mass media (Lennon’s Revolution selling sneakers).
With the rise of mainstream folk culture, though, the interesting structural observation isn’t the lack of central control. It’s the emergence of networks of influence that are shaped by taste, by opinion, by identity, by personal connection, by mentorship.
Vaidhyanathan laments the lack of community formed around Napster. But that was just immaturity. We’re just inventing tools for groupforming around shared preferences and collaborative creation. Flickr has cool tools for building groups around sharing pictures. If Napster was allowed to live, if music-sharing were legal, we’d see faster growth of social software around music.
“Anarchist” segues from Napster to chapters showing science and libraries under attack by increasing corporate and political control. I found those chapters more interesting and informative, probably because I knew less about those topics than then internet copyright wars.
But the anarchist argument still wasn’t all that persuasive. There’s a strong case to be made that a balance is shifting toward control. But the converse — that science and libraries are inherently anarchistic — just doesn’t hold up. David Weinberger recently published an interesting piece on cultural bias in the Dewey Decimal system. Western science and technology has always had an alliance with military and industrial forces.
Also, the book’s politics contain a bit of kneejerk Chomskyism. Lets get this straight — third world unlicensed DVD factories are good guys, fighting US intellectual property protectionism. Meanwhile, the Brazilian domestic aerospace industry are the good guys when they implement protectionism, fighting US free trade. IP production is bad when the US does it, and good when the 3rd world does it.
In summary, Anarchist in the Library has some interesting ideas and information, but is a disappointing book overall. Beyond this book, Vaidyanathan thinks and writes well about interesting and important topics, and I look forward to reading more good books from him in the future.
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Thanks for the review. Thanks especially for the nice things you say about my work in general and my first book. I think you spotted some serious weaknesses in my arguments. Please allow me to address just a couple:
1) I don’t think libraries per se are anarchistic. I think we are driving our information systems (virtual and actual) into extremes of anarchy and oligarchy. Libraries are actually quite republican, which is the way I like them.
2) There is nothing Chomsky-ish about my political thought. I think he’s wrong about just about everything. I don’t consider unlicense DVD factories in devoloping nations “good guys,” just facts on the ground that no manner of law or code will be able to deal with. And the Brazillian protectionist example was an exposure of the myth of free trade as development policy. The US and France protect their archaic plane manufacturers, yet they freak out if someone wants to build a competing business.
3) I agree that file sharers are not overtly anarchistic. I say as much in the book. My point is that the interaction with such anarchistic technologies (the tech embodies the values) has exposed many to anarchistic ways of interaction. That changes the game in some powerful (and not always positive) ways.
4) I don’t see artists as lone rebels. I argue in the book that creativity is communal. It happens in a circle. I celebrate what Benkler calls “peer production.”
5) I love your point about the immaturity of Napster and the potential for powerful social software emerging among file sharers under different circumstances. I wish I had thought of that!
Anyway, I really dig when someone takes my work seriously. And it’s nice to start a conversation about the details and themes. I really appreciate you taking the time and effort to read and review the book.
And I dig your blog!
Siva
Thanks for the review. Thanks especially for the nice things you say about my work in general and my first book. I think you spotted some serious weaknesses in my arguments. Please allow me to address just a couple:
1) I don’t think libraries per se are anarchistic. I think we are driving our information systems (virtual and actual) into extremes of anarchy and oligarchy. Libraries are actually quite republican, which is the way I like them.
2) There is nothing Chomsky-ish about my political thought. I think he’s wrong about just about everything. I don’t consider unlicense DVD factories in devoloping nations “good guys,” just facts on the ground that no manner of law or code will be able to deal with. And the Brazillian protectionist example was an exposure of the myth of free trade as development policy. The US and France protect their archaic plane manufacturers, yet they freak out if someone wants to build a competing business.
3) I agree that file sharers are not overtly anarchistic. I say as much in the book. My point is that the interaction with such anarchistic technologies (the tech embodies the values) has exposed many to anarchistic ways of interaction. That changes the game in some powerful (and not always positive) ways.
4) I don’t see artists as lone rebels. I argue in the book that creativity is communal. It happens in a circle. I celebrate what Benkler calls “peer production.”
5) I love your point about the immaturity of Napster and the potential for powerful social software emerging among file sharers under different circumstances. I wish I had thought of that!
Anyway, I really dig when someone takes my work seriously. And it’s nice to start a conversation about the details and themes. I really appreciate you taking the time and effort to read and review the book.
And I dig your blog!
Siva
It’s so great to see a thoughtful review and then a thoughtful (and fearless) reply by the author!
A side note on corporate attacks on libraries: I recently saw an interesting review (on, of all places, the KUT website) of a book entitled “Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch, College Inc., and Museumworld” by James B. Twitchell. The review doesn’t mention libraries, and branding is a different front from IP, but I suspect they are pieces of a whole.
Since your blog strips HTML, here are the pertinent URLs:
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kut/arts.artsmain?action=viewArticle&pid=1032&id=676494
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743243463/
The Future of Ideas is fabulous — even for those of us who have been following the Copyfight closely. Do read it. I have a blog post queued for some time in the non-distant future.
If you’re reading a Vaidyanathan book, read the first book first. If you do read Anarchist, please share if you get different insights from it.
I wish I was a fast writer.