Mysteries of "intellectual" property revealed

                                               Mario Savio arrested in an attempt to speak at a
                                               campus colloquium on The Free Speech Movement,
                                               U.C. Berkeley, fall 1964
         

The plot thickens on the shutdown of my lecture on the "Qatsi" films of Godfrey Reggio and Philip Glass and the influence of Jacques Ellul upon their themes, a little talk scheduled for the conference of the Jacques Ellul Society at Carleton University this July.

The messages from the university spokespersons have gotten increasingly stern, schooling me on the fine points of intellectual property practice in Canada nowadays.  Below in total anonymity once again are the latest messages to me with other identifying information deleted as well.   None of the writers has asked for confidentiality on the content of the messages and their names will not be part of anything I write about this debacle.  Actually, they are all very fine people and I don't blame them for what's happened.

  % % % % % % % % % %

[message from pseudonym "Fred" mentioned in previous post]

Dear .... If you read the law it is designed for creators...not just writers. Below is what the university has to say. Also, your interpretation of the writing situation isn't quite correct. Canadian copyright includes provisions concerning moral rights which aren’t concerned with lost revenue...but the right of a creator to have some control over where the creator’s work is used. As I understand it, this is one difference between Canada and the US. I demand that all my authors who use another author's work [quotes etc.] get permissions. What is interesting are the few cases where they are refused permission to use the work even if they are willing to pay. This typically occurs when one poet uses a small bit of another's work as an epigraph.  I’m sorry that this is upsetting to folks. This may be an issue of free speech, or it may be an issue of a creator’s right to have control of his/her work. If the person who wants to use the work knows the creator, as in this case, then there shouldn’t be any problem since the creator will give permission, no doubt. Moral rights may seem silly, but I know that many of my poets wouldn’t like to see bits of their poems on porn sites…even if the site host would pay. ....   Perhaps your suggestion is best, [name]... to just shift responsibility to you. This would require that the conference rather than [university unit X] be the host for the talk. Hopefully, my obviously absurd affronts and incompetence [in asking a simple question] won’t prevent Langdon from attending. .... Sorry about all the difficulties.

  **********
[message from another campus person the email writers consulted]
Hi ...
Generally guest speakers are responsible for clearing the copyright of what they present. I can give you some general information about copyright.   One of the questions here would be the length of the film clips, and to ensure that no digital locks were broken in creating the clips.

% % %%% %%

From Langdon:

Well, there you have it, folks.  Under the circumstances, I WON'T be going to Ottawa to give my talk. A lawyer friend and expert in the wiles of IP has now warned me about the troubles I might be getting into.  What interests me now is less the outcome of the current dispute, but something I've been wondering about for a long while, namely, the meaning of the beguiling term "intellectual property."

At this point it appears that at the national level there are legislators writing laws, bureaucrats crafting regulations, both probably responding to large corporations and trade associations that make sure their demands become part of a nation’s legal framework.  I imagine that at the university level there are lawyers who oversee which activities and resources are permissible on campus, advising academic departments and research units about the complicated conditions that now inform and constrain their inquiries.  At the end of the chain, I suspect, are timorous faculty required to observe the increasingly complex rituals of compliance that now comprise the center of academic life.  Hence, professors dutifully advise students to probe the key questions in sciences, the humanities and social sciences of the 21st century -- questions about the liabilities, law suits, insurance policies, restraining orders, and career threatening hazards their research entails.

An imaginary dialog:

“Do I dare to eat a peach?”

“Great question, Professor Winner.  Of course you’ll have to check the extensive legal implications and entanglements entailed in peach consumption or, for that matter, even talking publicly about peaches. And oh, by the way, wasn’t that  “peach” line you just used taken from T.S. Eliot?   His property management firm has been up in arms recently, challenging our proposed “Waste Management Systems” logo as an infringement of their global “Wasteland” trademark.  They may lodge a complaint. So it’s probably wise to delete that “peach” reference altogether. It might be prudent to change your question to:  Do I have the requisite authorizations to taste a small portion of an avocado without obtaining permission from the avocado producers?  That might work, for a little while longer maybe."

In the months ahead I plan to do a lot more research, thinking and writing on these matters.  For the moment, my simple, perhaps overly naive questions are these:

1. Is the regime of property protection now thoroughly installed in our institutions offensive to academic freedom, scholarly inquiry, political free speech, and open public debate?  Answer:  yes.

2. Does the current regime of property protection buttress the unequal economic and political power of corporations and the wealthy few in world societies while seriously weakening the power of possible critics of the system of Techno-capitalism?  Answer: yes.

3. Were my own rights of academic freedom and political free speech undermined by the property protection measures that now govern “the life of the mind” in Canada?  Answer: yes.

4. Are scholars, scientists and their students now being enlisted as thought  police in today’s property protection rackets?  Answer: yes.

To all of this I would only add that I’m looking forward to celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Free Speech Movement in Berkeley 1964, an event that changed my life and thinking profoundly.  Back then it was pressure of a ham-fisted political kind that challenged free speech and academic integrity on the university campus.  Students and faculty resisted and eventually won.  Today the threats are more subtle, insidious and likely more destructive in the long run.  Alas, the “intellectuals” have become front line troops in the war to defend the citadels of global capital.

Intellectual property? Where the hell are the intellectuals?

                                                  James Cagney in "White Heat" (1949)

Stop Me Before I Lecture Again!

There I was working quietly in my study when suddenly ...

I've been invited to give a talk at conference of the Jacques Ellul Society in Ottawa this July 13-15.   It should be a wonderful event.  I'd planned to give an illustrated lecture, "The 'Qatsi' Films of Godfrey Reggio and Philip Glass," focusing upon the three films -- "Koyaanisqatsi," "Powaqqatsi," and "Naqoyqatsi" -- and the influence of Ellul's thinking upon their overall conception.  I've given the talk a couple of times before, using selected segments from DVD copies of the movies.  I offer my interpretation of the images and music, drawing upon key on themes in Ellul's writing.  The film clips are treated as, in effect, "texts" for philosophical discussion. 

Alas, as I was making travel arrangements and checking on the technical details of my talk, a strange cloud gathered over the plans.  Below is the email exchange with names changed (to "Fred" and "Prof. Williams") to protect the two fine Canadian scholars who were unfortunately bearers of bad news from the Carleton University pettifoggers. 

    % % % % % % %  

Hi Langdon,

  Just one further question. The university is very concerned with intellectual property rights. I'm assuming you have permissions to use the clips. In case someone asks, however, could you confirm. Thanks. 

Cheers, 

Fred

    % % % % %

Dear Fred,

No, and I won't bother to get them.  I take this to be fair use for
scholarly purposes and public discussion.  I've given the talk
informally at conferences and on university campuses with no problem,
simply pulling out the clips from the DVD. The only thing I'm doing
differently here (as opposed the Wheaton College version) is to smooth
the transitions by editing segments into a flow easier to sequence with
my lecture remarks.  But if the bean counters are worried, the lecture
will have to be cancelled.

It that happens, it certainly will make a great story I can tell at a
conference on Free Libre Open Knowledge I'll be attending in Quito next
week.
Best wishes,
Langdon

                     % % % % % % %

Dear Professor Williams,

Could be lights out.

See Fred's  message … and my response.

Best wishes

Langdon

         % %%%

Hi Langdon,
I agree with your approach. This is a non-paying audience, and you are using clips to illustrate your points, not to act as a substitute for the films. In fact, your presentation can be expected to attract people to a film by the same film-makers. If I were Godfrey Reggio or Philip Glass I'd be very happy with what you are doing.
 

A request for permission may be interpreted as a request for permission to go beyond fair use, and if such permission is refused what do you do? If the idea was fair use from the start, why would you have to ask?
I hope this gets resolved quickly and in your (our) favour. The University's Film Studies department must have dealt with this question before and I could ask them about their practice.
 

Best,

Professor Williams

 % % % % % %

Hi all,

I am looking into this. As I understand things, Canadian and US copyright law differ on fair use. When used in Canada, Canadian law applies. I don't want to have to deal with permissions, but the university insists that we are responsible for applying copyright.

Cheers,

Fred

  % % % % % %

Dear Fred,

I await the results with baited breath.  Meanwhile the story is already the source of great guffas among those preparing for the Summit on Free Libre Open Knowledge in Quito at which I'll be speaking next week.  Open Culture, Open Knowledge indeed!

Even if cleared for takeoff, I seriously doubt I'll attend the Ottawa conference after this absurd affront.

By the way, I receive a credit in the first of the Qatsi films and have known Reggio for decades.  I'm sure he'll be amused when he hears that I'm unable to describe, interpret and reflect upon his work in a free, public forum.

Best wishes,
Langdon 

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Note (May 22, 2014)

I will supply updates on this situation if the anything changes or if sanity breaks out.  This is the best (worst) personal experience I've had with the insidious consequences of "Intellectual Property" regimes for scholarship and public debate.   

May 23, 2004:  Here are the latest points of clarification.  Evidently there is a new "Intellectual Property" law that has some noble purposes but with annoying consequences for the life of the mind.   I have edited the message below from the  pseudonymous "Professor Williams," excluding parts of the message that point to the person's identity. 
  * * * * * * *

Hello all,
The new copyright law in Canada was designed to protect writers, who generally don't get paid well, in contrast to educators who generally get a decent salary. All too often, excerpts from books have been used in courses and the writer, whose chapters would be reproduced, got nothing. The idea was that just because the purpose is education it doesn't mean that the writer should not be compensated.
The situation with Langdon is very different, in the way I described in my last letter. Far from ripping off the movie-makers, he is providing his own valuable content and encouraging his audience to acquaint themselves with their works. Indeed, we are renting "Visitors" for that very purpose.  The movie-makers should be happy. 
The Canadian copyright law is rather complicated, and bean-counters with less of a concern for the overall knowledge exercise will naturally be conservative. Their natural instinct is to rein professors in, since they are concerned with financial risk-reduction and a lawsuit is one of those lose-lose situations (even if you win, you lose with your legal costs). What we, as educators have to do is to look at the larger picture of what the spirit of the law is, and how we can accommodate our work to it without jeopardizing our own mission.
Lawyers and administrators are not likely to be helpful. I suggest just going ahead ..

  * * * * * * * * * *

Langdon's comment: 

Well At this point I think I'll go ahead an give the damn presentation, intellectual property crimes and 

all.  However, it will now begin with the following introduction, offered James Cagney style: 

"Come and get me coppers!  You ain't takin' me alive!  The only way 

I'm gonna stop is when you rip these lecture notes from my cold dead 

fingers!"

 

Hitler finds out he's not admitted to Design program

Recently, in my class on Design, Culture and Society at Rensselaer, we've been talking about humor and creativity.  I made the classic argument that a joke or comic expression of some kind typically springs forth when two or more seemingly unrelated frames of meaning temporarily collide to produce a laugh or a smile.  The larger point is that creativity in a much broader sense can also happen during collisions of that sort.  I noted that in New York City and elsewhere there are literally boiler rooms where talented people sit around every day engaged in crafting these events, writing and testing dozens of amusing lines for the comedians on late night television shows.  As I understand it, they start with the daily news and start exploring points of connection, an odd variety of mass production.

With these thoughts in mind,  I happened upon a version of the famous Internet gag, the "Hitler finds out" program, one that lets anybody write subtitles for a scene lifted from an old movie about Hitler's last day in his bunker in Berlin.  There are probably thousands of versions of this on YouTube.  So I decided to produce one for the class, "Hitler finds out that he's not been admitted to the Design, Innovation and Society program" at RPI.  I included several in jokes from the semester, for example a reference to the three weeks we spent reading and discussing Jeff Wiltse's wondeful book, Contested Waters, a history of swimming pools in the USA.  The script took all of 20 minutes to write and, alas, includes some typos. (You get what you pay for.)

I showed the clip yesterday with brief introduction that took note of the fact that young Adolf Hitler desperately wanted to become a painter, applying twice to an important school of art in Vienna and twice rejected.  I noted that in some ways his dreams matched their own -- the desire to become a successful designer and artist.  "Looking back on it now, it may have been one of the most calamitous turning points in the 20th century.  Think of all the destruction, suffering and slaughter that might have been prevented if only young Adolf has been admitted to art school."  I then observed that "a little known (very little known) fact is that Hitler applied to a forerunner of the program in which you are studying in at Rensselaer." 

Of course, the humor in all of these "Hitler finds out..." clips stems from the fact that most Americans can't understand a word of the German the actors on the screen are speaking and the fact that watching Hitler rant and rave about matters from our own time, ones  disconnected from World War II, from the Holocaust and other calamities, produces effects that are sometimes funny.

Here's the clip: Hitler finds out he's not admitted to the Design, Innovation and Society program

Stop the corporate coup at Medialab-Prado!

I recently received word that one of the world's most positive and influential centers for the confluence of artistic, technical and political ideas is threatened by a corporate takeover of its building and its very mission.  Medialab-Prado in Madrid has long served as a haven for inventors, thinkers, tinkerers, community activists, students, international visitors, and ordinary citizens.  Over the years it has offered countless workshops, conferences, planning sessions, displays of public art, free wheeling debates, and all manner of lively, ground-breaking activity.  Now the city officials who control the building it occupies have hatched a scheme to turn over its space to a huge telecommunications firm and send the Medialab staff and participants to God knows where.

I first got to know the Medialab in the summer of 2010 while I was visiting Spain on a Fulbright Fellowship, studying how the Internet was changing Spanish politics.  The very best help I received  in finding people to interview, documents to read and events to monitor came from key people at Medialab-Prado. A high point was a dialog one evening in which Yochai Benkler, Javier Bustamante and I discussed the substance and significance of Benkler's ideas about the networked economy and networked public life.  Since that summer I've returned frequently and watched Medialab-Prado grow and expanded its reach into a great many of the 21st century's most vital and hopeful spheres of exploration.

At present I'm trying to learn more about what seems to be a diabolical plot to shove Medialab-Prado and its participants into the dark shadows now enveloping much of the global economy.  I want to scream: "STOP THIS!  STOP THIS FOOLISH SCHEME NOW!"  I know it will take much more than that.  Will you lend a hand in investigating, protesting and seeking alternatives to these hideous, unfolding plans?  Let's get BUSY!

Below is the best information I have, a long message from Jose Luis de Vicente forward to me by the noted historian, Antonio Lafuente

 - Langdon Winner

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

HELP US SAVE MEDIALAB PRADO

Dear Friends, 

Probably many of you have already heard about the serious problems that Medialab Prado is undergoing currently that threatens to stop the activity of the center and maybe, in the mid term, it’s very existence. I know many of you have in the past years taken part in projects and activities there, and have good memories of the institution. Even those of you who have not been there have heard about it and know it’s an interesting, lively place that has made significant contributions to this community. Now it needs as much support from the community as possible to go on. 

What it’s going on?

Less than one year ago, Medialab Prado opened, after 5 year of renovation and 6 million Euro of public investment, a brand new building. A new facility that multiplies the size of the previous space by eight and creates all kind of new opportunities, with much better resources.  While the previous space kept the organization relatively under the radar for many in the city council, the new building is really iconic  and has raised the profile of the organization considerably. 

Recently we have learned that major telecommunications multinacional Telefónica is looking for a building in Madrid to set up its new startup incubator and has expressed interest in the Medialab Prado building. The City Council, always eager to please, has considered the request and has acknowledged in public that they are under negotiations to satisfy this request. The implications for Medialab Prado are, obviously, quite serious. While they insist in theory on keeping their support for the institution, the reality is that:

- they have not made a firm offer of a new space that is already available and in the right conditions to continue the program with no major disruptions

- they have not committed to invest any resource in allocating the center in a new space

- they have not guaranteed that any transfer could be done promptly and without a long transition that could stop the activity in the center for many months

The reality is that Medialab Prado could be stuck in a limbo for a very long period, and any development from the possible eviction onwards is at this point very uncertain. The community of users of Medialab Prado has serious concerns that this could start a process that could end with the death of the institution.

To make things worse, it’s important to notice that the building that Telefónica wants to take over has been renovated with public money and with the specific goal of being a cultural facility. 

How can you help? 

We need to show the City Council in clear terms that Medialab Prado is an important institution that is highly respected and valued internationally. One of the most ironic aspects of this situation is that given the problems they’ve always had to understand what is Medialab Prado -not being a museum, a gallery, or an arts production center- they have never been understood that this is one of the most influential and valued cultural institutions today in Madrid and Spain. 

There’s no one better than you to help us to make them understand how important is protecting and preserving the valuable role that Medialab Prado has played in the last ten years. For this, we are requesting any of this three things:

1. A statement or blog post in your own website explaining why you appreciate and value the role of MLP and showing your concern for how the current situation could threaten it. We will link to it and translate it from the website of support we are currently setting up, that should go live in the next hours.

2. For those of you with affiliations with universities, museums or companies, a signed letter of support with the logo of your organization. If you can send it to me I will get it into the website and also printed to send them all together to the City Council.

3. A short video that we can embed in the website, offering your support. Here are some videos from 1 year ago -before the crisis started- that can be used as a model:

http://medialab-prado.es/article/medialabinternacional

That is all. If you have other suggestions or contributions, please let us know. Thanks for helping us keep Medialab Prado alive.

Best,

Jose Luis de Vicente

 

 

 

Radio interview on Progressive Radio Network

 
I recently did a radio interview with author/teacher/activist Charlene Sprenak on the Progressive Radio Network.  We talked about technology in everyday life, MOOCs and their historical (or is it hysterical?) precursors, the veneration of "innovation" and such topics.

Thinking outside the box ... IS the new box.

New unanswered questions about Benghazi

                                                      Still shrouded in mystery

Unanswered questions about Benghazi:

1.   When there’s air pollution in the city, does the weatherman say “Benghazi today, but clear tomorrow”?

2.   Wasn’t the original name of the place “Bengay,” later changed so as not to offend Muslim conservatives?

3.   Rumor has it that there was a 1950s comedian named Jack Benghazi with a sidekick named Rochester.  Is this true?

4.   Did Neil Diamond ever do a concert in Benghazi?  If so, did he sing “Sweet Caroline”?

5.   What’s the best deep dish pizza in Benghazi? 

If you have information about any of these matters, please send them to your local Republican Party officials and/or Fox News.

Hot new gadget -- The Smart Cup

                                                                The Smart Cup
 
Although little noticed in the trade papers, this gadget was one of the hot new products introduced at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week.  Here's the company's press release:

For countless decades people have used conventional coffee cups and tea cups for drinking warm beverages.  But seldom has anyone explored ways of improving the cups by integrating digital technology and state-of-the-art communications into their structures.  Recently the X Project research team at Gaggle, Inc. under the direction of entrepreneur L.C. Winner (formerly CEO of EDUSHAM) has discovered ways to unleash the power of the latest microchips, Big Data and Cloud Computing to produce the first truly innovative coffee cup in generations. 

Product specifications:

— powerful microchip integrated seamlessly into the cup’s ceramic base;

— electronic sensors in the bowl and handle of the cup to detect relevant  temperatures, hand and arm motions of the drinker and rate of consumption;

— mini wireless connection to the Cloud provides instantaneous access to massive amounts of data on the drinking habits of billions of consumers worldwide, adapting the cup’s temperature to the drinker’s personal profile;

— rechargeable battery powers all electronic components.

Performance:

The Smart Cup responds gracefully to the presence of hot liquids, keeping them warm for several minutes by carefully calculating the rate at which the drinker is likely to consume the product, allowing slow cool down as the person finishes.

Following a drinking session, the Smart Cup powers down automatically, sitting quietly on a table or kitchen shelf, awaiting the next introduction of hot liquid.

The Smart Cup is fully washable and dishwasher ready.

Smart Cups are available in a variety of attractive colors and decorative patterns matched to each consumer’s personal taste.

Estimated cost: $399

My top ten predictions for the New Year

My top ten predictions for 2014

1.  The success of Republican obstructionism in prolonging the Great Recession will produce a voter backlash, but one aimed at the Democrats and Obama.

2.  Lack of serious attention to global warming as the world’s central policy crisis will persist.  Carbon emissions will continue their steady, dangerous rise.

3.  Faced with mounting college debts and paltry job prospects after graduation, students will begin to question the value of higher education with fierce intensity. 

4.  Leaks of information about unlimited government powers to monitor people’s phone calls, emails and Internet browsing will continue apace.  Court cases on the issue will proliferate, generating a Supreme Court decision, probably in 2015.

5.   The precipitous decline of American journalism will be recognized as a national embarrassment as serious reporting on factual matters is replaced by incessant chatter of poorly informed opinions.

6.  The growing gap of inequality in wealth and income will widen further, while those with the power to do anything about it relish the fabulous benefits it brings them.  Blaming the poor and unemployed for their own misery will skyrocket as a popular political meme.  

7.   Celebrations of a new fossil fuel boom from widespread fracking will fade as its underling economics and environmental consequences become more widely known.

8.   The future of American football as the national game will fall under a shadow as the facts about long term brain damage to players gain public recognition.  Parents will pull their children out of Pop Warner and high school football programs.

9.   The spread of online shopping and long distance shipping will rapidly erode the vitality of local businesses, causing concerns about a new, hyper version of the Wal-Mart effect, devastating jobs, communities and families across the country. 

10.  The vitality of popular music in its many national and international genres will continue to shine and surprise, even as the quest to make a living in the music business becomes increasingly difficult.

Bonus forecast:   The gnawing question -- What are conservatives conserving? -- will remain embarrassingly unanswered.  

MOOCs meet the Automatic Professor Machine

  

Here are some excerpts from a new book by Jeffrey R. Young, Beyond the MOOC Hype,  an excellent, brief discussion of a variety of programs and projects in MOOC development currently underway.  Young takes note of my send up of technology in education from the skit, "Introducing The Automatic Professor Machine," first done in several in-person performances in the late 1990s.  (It now exists in a two part, low production value video on YouTube: here and here. ) When I first presented the talk at a conference at Penn State (with Ivan Illich in the audience) I observed that while people there probably knew me as a long time technology critic, "I've now had a change of heart."  An audible gasp arose from the audience ....

Young also quotes a recent interview with me and my and alter ego, L.C. Winner, CEO of Educational Smart Hardware Alma Matter, Inc. (EDUSHAM).   

From Chapter 5: WHY DO SOME EDUCATORS OBJECT TO FREE COURSES?

In 1998, when an earlier boom in “interactive education” was just getting started, a political theorist and technology critic named Langdon Winner staged a performance-art piece meant to expose what he saw as the true motives of online-education proponents.

Wearing a suit with a red power tie, he held a mock news conference where he unveiled a product called the Automatic Professor Machine, or APM, which looked like a bank ATM but could dispense educational products “from preschool to postdocs.” Students would put cash—about $300 per class—into a slot, get a CD-ROM packed with knowledge and homework assignments, then upload their completed work into the machine for automatic grading. It could eventually print out your college degree.

“Beginning this spring, thousands of these attractive consoles will appears in schools, colleges, fast-food restaurants, shopping malls, prisons, and other places where people gather these days,” Mr. Winner said, posing as CEO of EduSham, the fictional company offering this spoof product (the company name was an acronym for Educational Smart Hardware Alma Mater). “Our lectures and seminars will be given only by the top 10 stars in any given scholarly field. After all, why mess around with the small fry?”

Mr. Winner, a political-science professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is known for his irreverent style. While he was in graduate school, at the University of California at Berkeley, in the 1960s, he wrote reviews for Rolling Stone, hosted a radio program on an “underground” station, and played in a spoof rock band called the Masked Marauders. In several books over his long academic career, he has critiqued what he sees as the American love affair with technology, which he says blinds people to some of the implications of high-tech inventions.

At the mock press conference, the professor struck the pose of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. In character, he made light of the implications of his invention, arguing that the Automatic Professor Machine would make traditional professors obsolete. “Today’s educators may think that they are crucial to education, that their presence is required. But, my friends, they are simply mistaken,” he deadpanned. “By comparison, think of the elevator operators decades ago, who probably rejoiced when automatic controls came into elevators. They said, ‘Oh, wonderful, now our jobs will be more interesting and more fun. We’ll be able to talk to the people on the elevators. We’ll have less physical to work to, and so forth.’ Well, we know what happened  to the elevator operators. At EduSham, we view the elimination of the old practices, the old structures, and particularly the old personnel as good news!”

Like a good Saturday Night Live skit, the satire dragged on past the easiest parts of the joke, taking the product idea to its extreme. The EduSham president announced plans to use wearable computing technology to somehow transfer knowledge to students through clothing, and he showed a picture of a prototype: a T-shirt with a computer mouse draped over the shoulder. “In a future,” he proclaimed, “the T-shirt will simply be your alma mater.”

“On all sides,” he concluded, “we see a frantic but halfhearted scramble by those at old-fashioned institutions to catch up to the dynamism of this extraordinary historical situation. At EduSham, we look upon all of this with amusement, watching as teachers and administrators scramble to sacrifice their long-held principles and practices in a frantic quest to catch up and survive in the era of digital communications.”

I was still a relatively new reporter at The Chronicle when that ed-tech boom was going, and I covered what seemed like a loud and widespread backlash against online education. Many professors pushed back against the ideas that parts of teaching could be replaced
with computers and that degrees were products that could be digitized like so many other goods and services.

 . . . .

[Mr. Young goes on to summarize some of the key controversies and criticisms of MOOCs and eventually moves on to a telephone interview done early last fall.]

If a big advantage of MOOCs is the large data sets of student behavior, who will get to see that information to learn from it? And will the privacy of students be protected? Curtis J. Bonk, a professor of education at Indiana University at Bloomington, said he worried that MOOC providers could end up selling student data to companies that are “soliciting things you didn’t mean to be getting.”

As all of these issues have begun to get attention, satire has inevitably made its way into discussions of MOOCs.

Laurie Essig, an associate professor of sociology and women’s and gender studies at Middlebury College, put forth her own proposal for the future of high-tech education on The Chronicle blog The Conversation. Her vision: massive open online administrations, or MOOAs.
“Think about it: MOOAs are the perfect solution to the rising cost of higher education,” she wrote. “We take superstar administrators and let them administer tens, maybe even hundreds, of thousands of faculty at a time. The Ivy League and Nescac colleges could pool their upper management as could, say, Midwestern state colleges that start with “I” or “O.”

And so I called Mr. Winner, the technology critic who had staged the Automatic Professor Machine skit more than a decade ago, and I asked him what he thought of MOOCs.

He consulted his alter ego, the president of EduSham, which had made the APM. “His model now is that of hydrofracturing, or fracking, education,” Mr. Winner said. “What you do is you pump in course materials and lots of volatile rhetoric, and once you’ve broken up the substrata of the educational institutions, then you pump out whatever value you can.” EduSham apparently offers MOOCs but calls them massive obnoxious online commodities.

Why hasn’t Mr. Winner been more vocal in his concern? “I really see MOOCs as just the latest version of a very old story,” he said. “It’s very interesting that there’s no museum of the history of technology in education. I think the reason is that nobody wants to remember what happened five years ago or 15 years ago, because these things have always been failures.”

“We package this stuff as if you go through a set of courses and that’s what matters,” he said of traditional colleges. “But I always tell my students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, I say if you leave this place without a network of friends and colleagues, people your age with interest in the fields of knowledge and practice that you have mastered, and you leave this place without three or four faculty who would respond to a letter-of-recommendation request saying whether this person is any good, then you’ve wasted your money. Because education is not just about what you have in your head, but some precious things that are not very well understood.”

Those not-very-well understood qualities can’t be translated to a MOOC, he argued. “They create this one-size-fits all model—the idea that education is basically a matter of information transfer from point A to point B. That fundamentally misunderstands what education is about, which is human relationships.”

Containing the social cancer of inequality

                    Proponents of Swiss guaranteed income initiative dump a truck load of money
                    in front of the parliament in Bern to symbolize their cause.

At a conference at the Zurich University of the Arts recently I gave a talk on technological change and the widening gap of inequality in the USA during the past four decades.  In contrast, Max Rheiner, a faculty person there, told me about two referendums coming up for a vote in Switzerland soon.  One of them, the 1:12 initiative, would limit the top salary in any firm to 12 times the lowest worker's salary. (In the USA the prevailing ratio is that CEOs earn about 206 times the average worker's salary.)  Another Swiss ballot issue would install a guaranteed monthly income 2500 Swiss francs per month for "a decent life and to participate in public life."  Max did not know how likely it was that these measures would pass.  

Here's a link to a video on the money dumping prank shown in the photo above. 

The era of digital distraction

Where are we?  Who are we with?  And what are we doing?  What's that over there?  Who knows?  Who cares?

Gray Brechin sent me the outrageous photo above with the message: "Need I say more?"

On a day when the world yet again celebrates the victory of commodity fetishism -- the release of the iPhone 5S -- it's worth taking a moment to ponder the powerful hold of digital narcissism within our culture.  Recently, I've banned all laptops, tablets, smart phones, other electronic devices in my classroom, except for showing films and videos relevant to the topic at hand.  "We're going to look each other in the eye, talk about the readings and listen carefully to what others have to say.  If you have a problem with that, I invite you to take another class."  While there was initially some resistance to this rule -- "What?  You're depriving us of our Internet and social networking!" -- I find that more and more students get the point and even enjoy visiting a space where the digital umbilical cord has been unplugged.

Community Supported Agriculture & the vitality of localism

                                         Harvesting garlic at Roxbury Farm, Kinderhook, NY

 In the region of New York where I live, there is strong support for ways of blending traditional communities with new varieties of social, economic and political practice.  It's always good to see outside recognition for the success my neighbors are having in their endeavors.  Here's a brief notice I posted recently on a fine website -- IMBY.com [In My BackYard].  

Roxbury Farm finds "sweet spot" in CSA size

There’s an interesting story on the NPR site, “Community Supported Agriculture: How Big Is Too Big?”  Columbia County’s Roxbury Farm seems to have found “the sweet spot.” As a Roxbury member for many years, I’ve seen the combination of idealism and good business sense that Jean-Paul, Jody and crew bring to their work.

I understand that the farm will start (or has already started?) posting its well-written, practical, always inspiring weekly newsletters on IMBY.com

– Langdon Winner 

Update:
The the latest Roxbury Farm newsletter is out, the one for July 22, 2013.  It worries about the weather and other matters, but is hopeful as always.

How will evangelicals respond to DOMA and Prop 8 decisions?

[With this post I'll begin a series of shorter comments about recent events, longer than the truncated observations I offer on Twitter or Facebook.]

Along with much of the nation, I celebrate news of The Supreme Court decisions striking down the benighted Defense of Marriage Act and California Proposition 8.  At the same time this turning point brings to mind surprising moments during two occasions in recent years in which I set foot in a church.  One was a memorial service for a family member held in a suburban Portland, Oregon maga-church.  The other was a wedding of a young couple in Washington, D.C.  Both events were deeply moving and personally meaningful.  But oddly enough, both included brash, tasteless, completely out-of-place interventions of homophobic preaching from the middle-aged male pastors who were conducting the services.  

At the memorial service recalling the life and contributions to family and community of a wonderful women, the clergyman departed from the flow of comment to deliver a vehement condemnation of homosexuality and a warning to younger members of the congregation about its lures.  "Good grief," I thought to myself.  "What's that all about?" 

At the wedding of the young man and woman -- a service enlivened by lots of gospel singing and hand clapping -- the religious master of ceremonies proclaimed the love and personal virtues of the couple, but seized the moment to argue that their bond deserved praise as a notable victory over Satan's treachery of gay sex that had swept up so many defenseless souls in this sinful era.  While the comment did nothing to change the good spirit in the chapel, it did add a distinctly sour note to the proceedings.  I began to wonder if comments like these had become a necessary part of evangelical church services, regardless of time and context.

In this light, it seems to me that this weekend an excellent source of entertainment would be to visit your local, "conservative" mega-church and listen closely to the sermon and the discussions afterwards.  What are the pastors and members of the congregation saying now? 

A Big Hug for Paco

A Big Hug for Paco

By:  Langdon Winner

"It's a very fine essay," he said, "and I agree with most of it.  But that's not how we think about the situation now."  

It was the summer of 2010 in Madrid. I was enjoying a Fulbright scholarship and had been given an office in the philosophy division of CSIC, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, the Spanish equivalent of our NSF. As a way to introduce myself to the research fellows there, I'd shown them some of my writings, including a copy of an essay, "Is There a Right to Shape Technology?", one that describes the movement of people with disabilities as an example of possibilities for the democratic shaping of architectures and technologies. I thought the piece did a pretty good job making clear how a political theory of "rights" could be realized in situations where concerns for technical utility, efficiency and profit usually prevail and how steps of that kind could expand people's experience of citizenship.  

The first of the CSIC group to respond was Francisco "Paco" Guzmán, a man in his middle thirties, a brilliant physicist turned philosopher and sociologist.  "Your arguments about rights and democracy are quite good," he observed, "but all the language about 'disability' and 'people with disabilities' isn't helpful.  In fact, those terms pose a barrier to the kinds of freedom and social justice you obviously want to promote."  

Although Paco offered his comments in a sympathetic way, I was unsettled by them. I'd spent some time studying the history of American and international movements of "people with disabilities" from the 1960s to the present and had pondered the theoretical and conceptual issues widely debated the scholarly literature.  I thought I had approached the matter in an intelligent, respectful manner, including scrupulous avoidance of  "able-ism" and the kinds of prejudice and discrimination that outmoded perspective entails.  Yet here was a friendly person telling me that my thinking was badly flawed.  

"The problem is," Paco continued, "that putting people into the categories of 'abled' and 'disabled' is extremely limiting.  It leads us to suppose that you're essentially either one kind of person or the other kind when that is simply not true."

"I suppose you're right," I replied, "but I don't know how to get beyond that way of describing the basic situation here.  It's possible to take the trouble to describe specifically what kind of disability or impairment a person has in hearing, eye sight, paralysis in the limbs, and so forth.  But the  condition boils down to a stark either/or.  Some people exist within biological and cultural definitions of "able" or "normal" while others -- through no fault of their own -- are 'disabled.'  Are you saying we can move beyond that?"

"Most definitely!" he exclaimed. "For the past decade or so, scholars and activists in Spain have been using the concept of 'diversidad functional,' or 'functional diversity' in English, to describe the wide range of features that people's bodies can have.  There are a great many ways that human beings can 'function' given various physical or intellectual traits whether inherited or acquired.  Rather than lump these into two basic, essential categories, it's better to recognize the variety of these features and their functions.  When you take that step, the philosophical and practical questions become ones about diversity -- how to understand the important, sometimes problematic conditions and how to manage them in intelligent, fair-minded ways."  

The basic truth and implications of what Paco was saying struck me immediately and have grown in my worldview ever since.  The basic insight is that of thinking about the world, its creatures and their possibilities is vastly aided by recognizing plurality and diversity.  We know, for example, that what people used to talk about within the broad, essential category of "sex" has gradually been redefined as a range of phenomena better described in terms of gender and sexuality.  Growing recognition of people in LGBT communities, along with new ways of understanding matters of ethnicity and race, have profoundly changed the ways we think about what it means to be human.  We live in a diverse and multiply blended world, a world that has enormously positive possibilities, but also one whose dazzling complexity many people find distressing, even threatening.  

A growing awareness of plurality and diversity within humanity takes a new turn when one raises the question that Paco posed for me that afternoon: Upon which spectrum or, more to be more accurate, upon which set of spectra can the the features of one's body and its capacities be placed?  In that light, the ways in which any of us are more or less "functional" in the world are vastly multiple and open to improvement or decline given one's situation, the wages of time (e.g, aging), the effects of social policies, and a host of other factors.

I should point out that Paco, the one who taught me this valuable lesson three years ago, held somewhat different positions on the spectra of functional diversity than some of the characteristic features in my own body.  As our conversation unfolded, he spoke through a little electronic amplification box that always accompanied him, one that enabled his barely audible voice to be heard across the table.  Born with little or no use of his hands, arms and legs, he moved about the world in a wheel chair pushed by his wonderful mother, Pacquita, or by one of the assistants he employed. In the familiar, conventional sense, his much of his own functional capacity was highly limited.  At the same time he had a brilliantly creative mind, wonderful sense of humor, talent for friendship, profound grasp of a wide range of philosophical and political issues, and (as he demonstrated on that first day and all our conversations since) an extraordinary talent for exploring questions in a graceful, generous, fruitful manner.  

During the years following my summer in Spain, Paco and I stayed in touch online and in person.  Whether by prior arrangement or just showing up by surprise, he would attend the talks I gave in Spain now and again.  On one occasion he delivered a paper for a graduate course I'd helped organize in Copenhagen.  His co-author, Mario Toboso, also from CISC, was present in person while Paco spoke to us on the screen via Skype.  Because he wanted very much to travel to the USA we briefly explored the possibility that he might spend time at the new Ed Roberts Campus in Berkeley.  I had known Ed Roberts in classes during my student days at Berkeley, celebrating his rise in the late 1960s a leader in campaign for the rights of people with disabilities in the USA.  Although Paco's  contributions to the movement came later and had a different character, I would not hesitate to place him on the same level as Roberts.  Both of them helped us think about the world in astonishing and beneficial new ways.

While Paco's ideas on "functional diversity" were the subject of a book and several papers he was writing, he was a truly public intellectual, active in political campaigns that emphasize the need for social change that could improve the lives who diverse functioning places them out of the conventional mainstream.  When the streets of Spain erupted with massive political demonstrations during the Spring of 2011, Paco appeared at one of the rallies to read from his wheel chair a declaration of principles for people whose condition of functional diversity required special attention by the social service agencies of the city and Spanish governments.  In fact, he was proud of social reforms in his country that enabled him to live as independently as possible rather than warehoused in a home for people with special needs.  The last time we talked was one evening last October in coffee shop in downtown Madrid. After a leisurely conversation he and Pacquita proudly showed me the new car they had bought for their mobility with family funds and some financial assistance from the government.  The vehicle featured a special built-in ramp that enabled him in his wheelchair to roll into rear of the vehicle and be quickly secured for the ride. I later told some mutual friends that I'd seen a wonderful new invention, "The PacoMobile."  

Although his positions on key policy questions were firm and strongly reasoned, he always presented them in fair, considerate manner.  During one conversation, I asked Paco about his position on abortion, a matter fiercely debated among people with particular kinds functional diversity.  He took the time to explain his views in detail.  The short version is that he favored on principle a woman's right to determine whether a pregnancy should be brought to term.  At the same time he strongly opposed a stipulation in Spanish law that extends the time period for ending a pregnancy if there is evidence that a child might be born with a significant disability.  "That part of the law is discriminatory," he explained.  "It says that certain kind of babies can be aborted beyond the time limit legally established in other cases.  While I strongly support a woman's right to choose, there should be no extraordinary extensions.  Such exceptions simply cannot be justified." 

I regret to say that Paco's days of thinking, writing, conversation, and living life to the full with his family and friends came to an end recently.  Early this year he suffered a series of illnesses that slowed him down.  Shortly after a stay in the hospital in March he contracted pneumonia and passed away.  He left behind a poetic, visionary, reassuring statement of farewell, "Panegirico."  At memorial services in his honor, friends and colleagues recalled their joy in his companionship.  Recently a columnist for El Pais, Rosa Montero (who had never met him in person) paid tribute to his accomplishments and enduring spirit.    

As a personal matter, I miss him terribly.  I will continue reading his works, teaching his ideas in my classes, especially ones that ponder philosophies of design for a better world.  He embodied that rare gift --  a joyful wisdom.

It is the custom in Spain to give friends a hug when you meet them and again when one leaves a social gathering.  With the group of scholars at CSIC I would join the practice of "abrazos" (hugs) all around.  But for a while I could not figure out what to do with little Paco resting there in his wheel chair.  So I would simply raise my hand and wave hello or goodbye.  One day, however, I thought to myself, "Hey, this isn't right!"  I told Paco of my discomfort and asked, "What should I do?" 

He smiled and said softly, "I accept hugs."  After that, when meeting or leaving, I would always bend down and hug him around the shoulders.

So it was.  And so it remains.  Abrazos, Paco.

Tribute to Michael Black

Remembering Michael Black

By: Langdon Winner

On my way to a conference in San Francisco last month I learned that Michael Black, a dear friend of many years, had been killed by a hit and run driver while walking along a country road in northern California.  I was devastated by the news.  Michael and I had talked by phone about getting together sometime over the weekend to catch up on recent developments in our lives.  But was not to be.  As the Dalai Lama once observed, "No one knows what comes first -- tomorrow or eternity."

Michael Black was truly a free spirit -- scholar, raconteur, singer, environmental activist, spiritual healer, ebullient visionary -- a person overflowing with joyful wisdom.  Long before the term became fashionable, he was a pioneer in studies of “sustainability.”  His PhD dissertation explored the collapse of ancient empires caused by ecological mismanagement, a fate that he believed was likely in store for our own civilization unless drastic measures were taken. His continuing efforts to find ways to heal the planet and its people carried him into wide ranging inquiries in political theory, American politics, social movements, natural history, forestry, the life cycle of West Coast salmon, and eastern philosophy.

I first met Michael, characteristically,  one afternoon in 1973.  As I banged away on my typewriter in an old Berkeley house, there was an unexpected knock at the door.   On the front porch stood a stranger smiling at me. "Hello!  I'm Michael Black.  I've heard about you and your work on the politics of technology.  We've got to talk."  We spent the rest of the afternoon drinking coffee and sharing thoughts about ecology and politics, the beginning of more than four decades of conversations.

 In variety of temporary and part time positions, Michael taught at several colleges and universities over the years.  Much beloved by his students and colleagues, his way of pursuing questions combined the intensity of Socratic method with an Aristotelian preference for philosophizing while walking around the campus.  Although he wrote continually and published steadily, academic administrators frowned at the relatively low rate of publication in the approved scholarly venues and, thus, he never received tenure.  I recall using the phrase "refereed journals" in a conversation with him one day, at which point he laughingly made the “tweet-tweeet” sound of whistles blown by referees at a football game.  That was his comment on the ways in an over-emphasis upon thinking by “peer review” had enforced a dull conformity in American higher education to the exclusion of other, more lively ways of knowing.  Nonetheless, as the years rolled on, Michael persisted, piecing together one class here, another class there twenty miles down the freeway, a vocation that he liked to call “Roads Scholar.” 

A colorful talker with an inborn love of word play, he used language in ways that delighted his friends and horrified university bureaucrats.  Within the grimly “serious” discussions about “curriculum reform” and “strategic planning” and similar matters (that waste far too much of the time of the nation’s best minds), Michael would often launch in to free association riffs that revealed the underlying absurdity of the conversation while angering the stuffed shirts who’d convened the meeting.  His everyday observations about the world were sprinkled with a range of signature phrases, delivered with a distinctive chuckle, ones that his friends will long cherish:

“Oh, oh.  I think reality’s breaking out today!” 

“Yes, it looks like we’re having too much fun!” 

My favorite story about Michael’s antics comes from the birth of my twin boys.   Following a 1:00 a.m delivery by Cesarian section, Gail was neatly stitched up by her doctors.  Around noon that day it was finally possible for family and friends to visit her and newborn Brooks and Casey in the hospital room.  The first person other than close family to arrive was Michael, who happened to be in town.    When he appeared at the door Gail raised her hand firmly as if to block his entrance,  “Michael, whatever you do, don’t get me laughing!” she exclaimed.  He came in accompanied by a group friends and within 30 seconds was telling jokes and had the whole room literally in stitches.  Of course, Gail eventually forgave him.

What Michael enjoyed most were days spent walking in nature.  On several occasions he took me high up on the west-facing slope of Mount Tamalpais just north of San Francisco Bay where we’d begin a long hike down to the sea.  As we strolled along the trail Michael would point out how gracefully the micro-eco-systems changed from place to place: from oak grove, to redwood glen, to grassy field, to sage brush chaparral, and eventually to the shores of a Pacific Ocean beach.  He enjoyed pointing out the details, sharing his sense of the world’s divine interconnections.  As Walker Black, his teenage son, commented at Michael’s memorial service, it was on those mountain strolls that "he felt most happy, most at completely at home."

Open on his desk at the end was a manuscript for first of three books Michael was writing about the spiritual explorations that occupied much of his life during the past decade.  In truth, he left behind a great deal more -- ideas, pieces of wisdom, joyful moments inscribed directly on the hearts and souls of his friends.  For those who knew and loved him, his presence in memory will continue to be: “Too much fun!”