An interview with Pavlos Hatzopoulos for Re-public
How possible is it for us to create value for one another without the intervention of government or corporate interests? Douglas Rushkoff explains the commons as the rising of a set of behaviors that generate an alternative value.
Pavlos Hatzopoulos: Why do you consistently compare contemporary information society to the Renaissance?
Douglas Rushkoff: Well, since you ask “why” instead of “how,” I won’t go into the details. Suffice to say, my books and articles go through the exact parallels between the original Renaissance and our era at great length: printing press, perspective, extended metaphor, circumnavigation of the globe, re-invention of the “individual,” the beginnings of calculus all find their modern parallels in the internet, holography, hypertext, orbiting the globe, re-invention of the collective, the beginnings of systems theory, in that order.
As for why. I think it’s important for people to get that there are models of change other than “movements” and “revolutions.” A renaissance - literally a rebirth of old ideas in a new context – is a much less threatening way of understanding and contending with all this change that’s going on. It’s a more optimistic, friendlier term than revolution, which often involves cutting off people’s heads.
Plus, it’s a terrific way of understanding what’s happening: old, repressed ideas, like the value of collaboration and cooperation, are being reborn in the next context of connectivity. These are ideas that have been pretty well squelched since the first renaissance, which celebrated individuality and the power of competition.
P.H.: Why should we be optimistic about our renaissance? Even though it is characterised by the creation of networks, collaboration, and sharing, these, on could argue, might be used for all sorts of different purposes.
D.R.: They are used for different purposes, all the time. I don’t know that I’m particularly optimistic, myself. But I do think there’s a value in being able to visualize positive, creative scenarios. If we can’t even envision an alternative to the faceless fascism in which we’ve found ourselves, I don’t see any way out of it. By beginning to believe that there might be steps we can take to begin the long hard road back to consciousness and compassion, we bring this journey into the realm of possibility.
And I’d rather live in a world where a reduction in pain, suffering, and stupidity is at least possible.
P.H.: Is there a particular area of everyday life where open source principles should not be applied?
D.R.: Well, I’d rather you not apply your open source principle’s to my wife’s sex organs or my child’s genetic code. I mean, while the codes through which we operate our society are most certainly social constructions (and not God-ordained pre-existing conditions) I believe we need to negotiate our collective truth together. It’s not a complete free-for-all, and the rights of individuals to make certain decisions for themselves must override even the best intentioned desire of someone else to encode those decisions for us.
But I’m using ‘open source’ in a broader way than it is generally applied by, say, the Linux community. I’m talking about realizing how much of law or “truth” we take for granted is actually the creation of people.
P.H.: The open source model rests on a thick conception of community. Does the notion of the commons reflect it? Are there better ones?
D.R.: Well, the commons is a nice model. It’s really more valuable to us for what it tells us about what we’ve lost. A commons would be a great thing to have - and we only miss it now that it has been so overtaken by the market. But a commons is not a space that gets created, as much as a set of behaviors that generate an alternative value system.
So I tend to look more at the behaviors themselves. How willing are we to create value? How possible is it for us to create value for one another without the approval or intervention of government or corporate interests?
P.H.: Shouldn’t something die, before the commons is born?
D.R.: That’s kind of a heavy way of looking at it. It’s a bit revolutionary in spirit. So no, I don’t think something has to “die” as a prerequisite for people creating value for one another in new ways. It is possible that centralized value-creation schemes will decline as more peripheral and local economies ascend - but I don’t think anything has to die. There’s value in central authority. It just works better when it co-exists with other authorities, rather than exterminating or assimilating them.
Further links
Open source democracy
Renaissance prospects (podcast)
IEET Blog