conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

satreday post

The sun is shining, but the wind is blowing off the lake. I went outside to walk the dog in short-sleeves. That was perhaps a wee overzealous, but I am happy. I am sitting in Randall's office as I type this. The sun is streaming through the window. Springtime in Chicago is seldom like this. Rain and cloudiness is more the norm. I treasure days like this one.

The internet is still down at my house. It would seem that my previous roommate was unable to switch the service over to my name. So, Trish and I will have to start from scratch. This is a mixed bag to be sure.

In other internet news, this article came across the wires from the Wall Street Journal Opinion page. Once again, the issue of sharing of property online comes to the fore.

No matter what the Supreme Court decides about Grokster's 15 minutes of fame, this is a philosophical issue for the long run. The Web isn't just a technology; it's become an ideology. The Web's birth as a "free" medium and the downloading ethic have engendered the belief that culture--songs, movies, fiction, journalism, photography--should be clickable into the public domain, for "everyone."

What a weird ethic. Some who will spend hundreds of dollars for iPods and home theater systems won't pay one thin dime for a song or movie. So Steve Jobs and the Silicon Valley geeks get richer while the new-music artists sweating through three sets in dim clubs get to live on Red Bull. Where's the justice in that?

I have this blog "protected" to some degree, but only so that I get a nod. I doubt I will ever publish something worth enough money to fret about. Where I would disagree with the Opinioneer at the WSJ is that the web is not an ideology but a community of ideas and ideasharing. We cannot underestimate the community aspect of the internet and Blogaria (Confusion, Dave? Really?) in our conversations about product sharing. Art is an idea given a specific shape. That it is marketable may be more of an accident than anything else.

As a musician (Yes, I have been able to support myself with my art.) and a "pulpiteer," I have to say that I am troubled by the current financial leanings of the market. Sony, Deutchagramaphone and others used to be places where ideas were honored for the art they produced and not for the income they produced. I disagree with the Opinioneer. I think that Steve Jobs has created another canvas...as has the internet. Go to the One of the Girls site and download the songs. They are free. Please, share them openly with your friends. Mix them if you are so inclined. Play with them. That is why I sing and preach. I want you to take it home with you. Some day we will find that the true market is a liberated one, a free one. Our current market economy is neither.

Yes, mine is a small world with big ideas and grandiose memories of a non-existant past, but the p.r. firms have me in their clutches. With the advent of the internet we have discovered that fewer of us may actually care for an open-source world than previously expected...We never really have been interested in it. Linux, Napster, Grokster...soon Blogger will be asking for a fee simply because the FCC license will be prohibitively expensive.

Unless we want it to be different. AKMA said it well at the Freedom to Connect Conference.

Rev. AKM Adam: I'm going to stick to a theological take on this as much as possible. The heart of the argument I want to make about the freedom to connect involves theological warrants. The freedom to connect engages three main points relative to the freedom of religion. One is the disintermediation of government. Two is the non-coercive practice of religion. Third is the prospect of human flourishing for which many of us construe religion as a necessary precondition.

One of the proximate causes for the whole American experiment is the restlessness of citizens of the British Isles for the right to exercise their own religion. The Pilgrims were motivated to great extent by wanting to escape mediation. The discourse of religion online thrives under non-coercive conditions. For religion to come truly to expression, the circumstances must be fully non-coercive. We could not flourish spiritually if a monitor dictated under what terms we must participate.

Shall we be open-source? Shall we be a place where ideas are free and given liberty? Or shall we take on a country club mentality where only those with enough income can participate? I fear the latter will the case. One already has to own a computer to play. Though this is becoming more and more possible even for low-income families, it is still not the same as speech. Speaking is free in that it costs us nothing. Blogging is at liberty but it is hardly free.

Ah. So complicated. I would prefer that this be free and liberated. Is that even possible? Cannot the internet be a public domain?

Posted by tripp at April 2, 2005 07:31 AM