Andrew Keen: Killing Free Culture

This is something in the vein of what Cendri said earlier today, only I’m a bit more fired up about it, because it is specific and now it is widespread. You see, not a few hours after I’d suggested some very good resources to her, I saw something on the television that really infuriated me.

I don’t watch much television. It’s on much of the time in my house, but usually behind me while Joe is watching it, and I’m here, typing away. But when I’m winding down from the day, and Johnny is tuckering himself out on the floor with his toys, I can stand to turn it on for a bit. It’s usually food or travel, or science, or satire. Yes, I get my news from Comedy Central. Don’t look down on me, asshole.

Tonight, on The Colbert Report, I saw something I didn’t believe at first. How someone could be so audacious, so blathering and miseducated, yet dispensing ill talk with a smile on his face… and I’m not talking about the host.

Andrew Keen, the author of The Cult of the Amateur, joined the show to plug his book, and, apparently, bash the Internet and all who upload information onto it.

He claims that the Internet is destroying our culture. It is, according to him, full of amateurs who are stealing information, average joes who type away at their blogs spreading nothing but hearsay and lies and misleading the public. Keen thinks that media coverage is better left in the hands of the “objective journalists” who are aware of the facts and can relay them properly to the public, rather than the bloggers who are “much of them being paid by foreign governments”.

…WHAT?

So, the newspaper journalists are the honest ones, and we Internet users are the conspirators? There may be a lot of useless information out there, but here’s the thing about the Internet: we get to choose what to believe and what to disregard. Blogs are rated by users, open to public opinion, objective comments, visible criticism, linking, etc. If that liberty is taken away, we have only Big Media and what they choose to tell us.

The bottom line when it comes to Internet information is this: smart people do the research for themselves. His assumption that most of us are cavemen and do not know this is horribly pompous. This is what the Internet is: a database of many millions of diverse opinions, which give us an overall view of the big picture, a well-rounded look at a situation from every angle. He is talking about censorship and control of information. Education is in a sad state these days; and the most intelligent people I know are those who read, on and off the Internet, and who are continually making it a point to educate themselves daily. A lot of people think that once they have their degrees, the little piece of paper buys them out of having to account for their ideas or keep an open mind. These people are wrong. An education is a life-long accomplishment.

Keen apparently also thinks he knows more than the average Internet user, is more educated than the rest of us. Colbert said, “You sir, are an elitist,” to which Keen responded, “But what would you define an elitist as?” Meanwhile, I’m screaming at my television set, “Asshole with a phony accent! PHONY ACCENT!”

He seemed, to me, to be unaware of a lot of things. Like how he contradicted himself a few times and fumbled through that interview pretty badly. All with his nose up in the air.

People like that think the attitude fools others into thinking they’re more intelligent or better than those who don’t carry themselves that way. It just makes them look stupid when someone calls them out on it.

Colbert joked that Keen inasmuch said that the Internet was worse than the Nazis. Keen’s response? “The Nazis never put any artists out of business.”

OH NO, they only BLACKLISTED works of literature and BURNED THEM. I really don’t think Keen is up on his material. What does he do, complain for a living?

He also said that something is not art unless one is paying for it.

But wait! Doesn’t that exclude architecture, public murals, the Sistine Chapel, works that were paid for one time only and then left for many generations to enjoy thereafter? I’d pay to see Michaelangelo pummel this guy with his chisel and call it art.

And wait! Didn’t he accuse us bloggers of being paid by outside parties? Which we most obviously are not! Otherwise, we could afford to be the Big Media! Doesn’t take an Internet degree to figure that one out! Does that make what we do art, then?

Mr. Keen, I have never heard of you until now. I wonder why?

The Internet has helped me to get my work out there. When I do have my original works published, the only reason I will already know my target audience is because of the Internet. Many professionals put free works out for use and also set aside works for business. This is why I have demo chapters. It’s called sampling, and often provides publicity for someone who would otherwise have none. Without this, only those who could afford publishing packages would be able to publicize their work.

This guy wants to privatize culture! He wants to hide it. If we cannot speculate, if we cannot talk about culture, comment on it, share our opinions and learn from each other, then how long will our culture live? How can it be our culture, if we cannot be a part of it?

That is not my culture. The things for which we will be remembered are the things that are widespread amongst the common folk. The best way to have an accurate record is to put it in the hands of the people. History books can be changed; ideas can be rewritten. This is post-diction, and unethical. There’s nothing special about post-diction. Now, widely scattered information databases? Cannot be completely extinguished.

Art is about community—and the Internet is the widest medium. Creation is about communicating thoughts and ideas, about making an impact. His position that the results of that impact only belong to a certain level of society… well, it’s an argument that hurts itself. This will be the end of our culture, many things will be lost.

To be perfectly honest, this does remind me of Nazi-ism. Their book-burnings were the “purging of unwanted materials” which didn’t fit in with their narrow scope of what a society should be. They tried to erase an entire culture. This is what Keen would like to see.

This man is simply on a Hollywood band-wagon. This is the same band-wagon that demands a director okay every single prop in his arsenal, down to the rickety chair in the corner, with a lawyer before he shoots a scene. It is full of those who have a problem with people who think for themselves. They’ve all forgotten what it was like before they were borrowing someone else’s platform, and had no power of their own. They would do wisely not to forget from whence they came.

This stifles creativity. It limits knowledge of its potential uses. It’s regression.

You know who I think is being paid? Keen. Go to www.savetheinternet.com to learn about the problems Free Culture is facing. Link this article elsewhere. Spread the word.

Here are some good resources: Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity and The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in the Connected World, both by Lawrence Lessig (an educated and highly published lawyer for Free Culture).

(ps. I went to ColbertNation.com. He has a fanfiction section. That cracked me up in a good way.)