roundtable: Re: Content is the cargo of truth

roundtable: Re: Content is the cargo of truth

Re: Content is the cargo of truth

Jeff Briggs (jbriggs@capital.edu)
Tue, 21 Mar 1995 07:55:40 +0500 

Date: Tue, 21 Mar 1995 07:55:40 +0500
From: jbriggs@capital.edu (Jeff Briggs)
Message-Id: <9503211255.AA23887@athena.capital.edu>
To: roundtable@cni.org
Subject: Re: Content is the cargo of truth


Hate to disagree with Matt York, who has made many good points, but
re "Content" I do.

     "In a democracy the marketplace of ideas dictates 'who is saying 
what'". he writes. That's wrong, in the sense that the "marketplace of 
ideas" doesn't sell vast areas of intellectual, cultural, philosophical, 
and artistic "products". 

     Let's drop this marketplace analogy. It doesn't fit in human 
communications. It's an economic - ie. materialist idea, and thoughts 
and artistic expression are in a different realm, and it distorts their 
essence to use these images that carry American materialistic, 
capitalist assumptions with them.

     The purpose here is to make the nets of the future as good as they
can be. The main drawback with our mass media today is that they are
a closely held monopoly (in effect if not literally) which skews the
"marketplace of ideas" towards some thought, and minimizes or totally
excludes other thought.

     Your ference to socialist thought is not the last word on what it
could be. Democratic socialism exists in various forms. including
here. My point is that free and open access and NO censorship of
content is a high value for future communications nets. Your assumption
that what we have now in our mass media is the best we can do is
short-sighted, culture-bound, and misses the opportunity for universal
free expression that is actually taking place every day beneath our
noses on this and thousands of other lists. I simply want to pass
on the legacy of the freedom and communication power I am exercising
at this very moment to the generations of the future.

     That's why while as Matt said we can never dictate content
(I'm not suggesting we should), at the same time going into the
future with unexamined values and assumptions from past models
will certainly end up mangling the free exploration of all possible
content in the future.

Jeff Briggs
<jbriggs@capital.edu>

[CNI Home Page]