The Clash of the Great Gods

That is, the American gods of today, i.e., Information, Technology and Money.

I was given this article by my New Yorker boss - he wanted to know whether I thought it worth sharing with the rest of the library staff. It's a well-written article, and this morning, having been in a rather unusual fit of intellectual agility it sent me into the following thoughts:

Since entering the field known as "library science" (aptly named 'library', being the field related to and concerned with such things, but named 'science' for no good reason - see previous post) I have encountered a very strange attitude. Many people, supposedly in authoritative positions, have decided that the library field is defined and determined by one, modern (and incidentally very wrong) conception of scholarship, learning and "progress". The main way their concept of these things is manifested is not through intellectual works aimed at these thoughts themselves (that would be far too theoretical, after all - much too unscientific), but through militant resistance to any and all forms of "censorship" from anyone, anywhere, at any time. It seems to be widely accepted that all things written, no matter on what subject, for what purpose, or with how much intelligibility, are to be included by the librarian in his or her collection. This is especially the case if the librarian works with the academia; if there is no freedom of expression (i.e., license to commit any form of stupidity) in the academic library, the world is indeed going back to the middle ages (i.e., the modern notion of going to hell) in a handbasket.

The article I linked to above points out the same conception on the grand scale, including it to expand the efforts of corporate monstrosities such as Google, Microsoft, and others. Google, especially, is shown to step forth in glory, championing the great and noble mission of placing all written words at the fingertips of Everyman.

No doubt, scoffing is natural. Nobility generally assumes a lack of self-interest, and Google made its millions through its edgy advertisement schema. Without a doubt, their aim is to make more millions off of those search-appropriate advertisements little Billy will see when he's clicking through their Universal Library for Everyman. The standards of our capitalist economy do not, however, adjudge this ignoble, but savvy - those that complain of the circumstance have no real reason to do so aside from sheer human jealousy. Google has as much rights to the millions as anyone else - if you'd thought of it first, you'd be rich, too. So stop your crying.

My real objection, however, is that people seem to think that putting together a sheer collection of all this wordage is somehow going to bring about "progress". It all comes of modern philosophy, really - Cartesian and Hegelian contortions of the universe and it's nature. If existence only comes about in the perception of the thinking thing, every expression of thinking beings becomes a valuable chunk of the universe. By virtue of this, the most nonsensical blather becomes information of inestimable worth, to be searched, referenced, annotated. Up it goes, loaded into the Google machine of data-collection so that it might, perchance, be converted into statistics and fed into the vacuous mouth of the World Spirit, swelling it towards the next epoch in this Bacchanalian revel. No doubt, everything written by men will bring us that much closer to becoming gods, per the promise given by that long, green snake with the shiny fruit of death.

Those were the more philosophical thoughts that came of this article, however. There were others, dwelling more upon the matters of social justice. No doubt, copyright law is very useful to ensure creative men the ability to make a living off their work. This can be easily seen as a good - nobody likes starving artists. On the flip side, however, it does give both artistic expression and scientific discovery the flavor of a manufactured commodity. This is highlighted by Mr. Kelly's concept that copyright laws of undue duration do not encourage the productivity of the creative artist. This seems like a twisted way of seeing it - copyright law as a way of pressuring artists into becoming "very useful engines" (to use the catch-phrase of the uncomfortably Marxist childrens' program 'Thomas the Tank Engine'). The end result is that even those rare noble discoveries, beautiful paintings, and good music all become vehicles of filthy lucre - nothing more, nothing less. If they're used in a way that doesn't make-a-buck, call out the lawyers 'cause there's gonna be a row.

Now, there is one notable (and even somewhat odd) response of the common man to this situation. Men around the world, most likely grown tired of the subscription-based or pay-per-view industry of enlightenment, have turned to 'open-source'-ing their knowledge and collecting it into free, easily accessed database programs, like Wikipedia or Open Office. Far from returning to the hell of the middle ages, where intelligent men (scarcely kept from starving by the alternate help and persecution of a Church that hated the progress of human knowledge - I'm SO serious, I actually saw this blatantly stated on an academic website's guide to copyright law) wrote on vellum in leaky, badly lit rooms while the peasants rolled in the dirt outside the gate. No, now, in our new, improved modern world, Joe Smith stocks shelves at Wal-Mart on his day-job, and later on he writes articles on Wikipedia by way of recreation - that is, after he watches "Grey's Anatomy"; he would never dream of missing that.

What a strange, strange world we live in. In the meanwhile, the men who worship the god called "money" sue the men who worship the god called "technology" and both utilize arguments against the other from their respective devotions to the gods we know as "rights" and "information" - and the demons devour one another for all eternity in the hole called hell.