Cc-uk mailing list

["David Hirst" <dhirst AT pavilion.co.uk>]

The openness of the debate, and the willingness of people who consider themselves part of the “movement” to engage in “internal” yet public and published debate seems to be an important part of the freedoms the movement(s) is/are aiming to achieve.

What seems to be important to emphasise is the extent of the agreement across the movement(s). There are clearly things we all share, and the debate is often about clarifying what these shared views are.

“Big Media” tends not to see it this way. All the newspapers and channels tend to seek the disagreements and arguments, and emphasise these. In part this is because it is more interesting, and does give a platform for the full breadth of ideas to be expressed.

Rather too often though Big Media seeks to sow and create discord and to damage consensus among its opponents. Argument for its own sake becomes the objective. This tends to give undue air time to the extremist and contrarians of the debate, however marginalised they may be, and so give the impression of discord and disorganisation. This also benefits the “status quo” of corporate dominance, who can then appear to be the “reasonable middle ground”. It is fear of the debate turning sterile in this way that seems to drive the desire to get the message clear and simple, and suppress anything that is not “on message”.

Yet to keep too closely “on message” is framing the debate in their terms, not ours.

Many organisations resolve this by spending time concentrating on a “Mission Statement”, which says clearly and succinctly what they do and stand for. Actually, mostly the mission statement is about what the organisation does NOT do, and its power lies in requiring people to justify the relationship between what they are saying or doing, and the mission. A sound organisation will never ask its people to do things that are not compatible with its mission, or perhaps, will never fire somebody who refuses to do something not contributing to the Mission.

In this case, it might be worthwhile to see if we can find single sentences that show the commonality of the movement(s), but also the different areas of interest.

I look forward to the suggestions.

David

 

-----Original Message-----
From: cc-uk-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:cc-uk-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of David M. Berry
Sent: 22 June 2005 18:37
To: Tom Chance
Cc: cc-uk AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [Cc-uk] FS vs CC?

 

 

Tom, A really well written email and one with which I concur.

 

In reply to Andres though, I would though like to point out that 

thinking that dissent is a 'bad thing' or that its 'unity is 

strength' are political sloganeering from the 20th century.  I 

believe that free culture offers us a more radical moment when we 

consider that our discussions, ideas and plans are all public. Just 

think about that for a moment. We are a truly transparent (dis)

organisation that is genuinely open to others. That's not to say we 

don't sometimes disagree, or that the disagreements can be internal 

as well as external. Regardless, the discussions are open. That is 

very different from bureaucratic organisations that fight to prevent 

any leakage from their public facade, we on the contrary reveal in 

the publicness of open, honest and free debate.

 

This means that there is no party line, decisions are reasoned out  

and subject to contestation and it is (thankfully) difficult to get 

authoritarian 'leaders' who seek to lead us down to the promised 

land. Not only that but this is mirrored in a message that is not 

only politically, socially and economically important and convincing, 

but also allows others to see how we got here. No membership cards, 

no gatekeepers and most of all no fiction of a univocal 

representational framework for our actions and practices.  To me this 

is in addition to the message of free culture, and weirdly confirms 

it all.

 

Secondly, I think you are right that the multinationals are 

sharpening their knives. But staying safe and quiet won't spare 

Creative Commons from attack. Sticking to the old organisational 

frameworks (like centralised, hierarchical bureaucracy) will be to 

play by their rules. Instead, it is important to stick to the ethical 

and political principle that makes the whole thing worthwhile and 

justified. And the political can only function where there is  

contestation and the clash of ideas and thoughts. We each subject our 

ideas to each other to both test and improve them. This results in an 

intersubjective improvement in all our skills, knowledges and most 

importantly makes our case more watertight.

 

I also support Creative Commons, and will continue to do so providing 

it does not lose its focus and beliefs. Everyone makes mistakes and 

this includes organisations that are trying to be innovative and 

creative in their approach. But that has to be tempered by critique 

and feedback. Once we submit to the King (as Foucault would have 

called it) or the party line, regardless of whatever it might be, 

contrary to our own beliefs and feelings, I fear the life and 

animation that drives the free culture movement will be lost.

 

Creative Commons aims to supply the licenses, that is fair enough, 

but they do not (unlike the open-source initiative) attempt to take 

over the discourse. Or at least not yet. And you don't have to look 

far to see that the CC is supported by many people who have a number 

of different radical, libertarian, social, communitarian or 

progressive ideas.... but all seem to agree that the untrammelled 

ownership of culture is a bad thing.

 

 

- David

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> 

 

_______________________________________________

Cc-uk mailing list

Cc-uk AT lists.ibiblio.org

http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-uk