"The Democratization of Knowledge" is not "The Murder of Hypatia".
I am sure I do not need to give Prof. Nichols a lesson in history, but, as I intend to use it as a point of contention with Prof. Nichols' complaints, I'll simply have to beg forgiveness for my presumption in doing so.
For the sake of the readers here, Hypatia was a well known female scholar in the city of Alexandria who was murdered by religious zealots circa 415 A.D. Her story or legend, what will you, has been used as an allegory for the destruction of reason by the ignorance of dogma represented by the uneducated and unwashed masses of religious zealots.
The event was handily married to one of the multitudinous destructions of the Library of Alexandria in the movie "Agora". A film I recommend even if some of the historical content (the sacking of the library illustrated takes place in 391 AD and drastically shortens the period after in which Hypatia is murdered) may prove inaccurate. It does capture the idea of "the death of reason" rather neatly and resounds with Prof. Nichols' polemic on "The Death of Expertise".
While I sympathize with the professor's position, I must disagree with him on his supposition. The current period of "flattening of information" and "the democratization of knowledge" does not equate to "the murder of Hypatia".
While it may feel chaotic and challenging, the advent of the internet (the flattening of information) along with scores of treatise, papers, e-books, websites, blogs and forums (professional and otherwise) with the appearance of professors, professionals and experts, such as Prof. Nichols and Prof. Schindler, enumerable conversations and challenges via this forum, Twitter, etc with all comers (the democratization of knowledge using tools that flatten information) would be comparable to more felicitous and momentous occasions in history.
Moments like the invention of the Gutenberg Press in 1450 (the flattening of information) at the height of the Renaissance thru the Age of Enlightenment where the ability to read, write and think critically or even independently began to filter down from higher echelons to the common people ("demo"; the Democratization of Knowledge). A period in time when even a butcher's son imagined that he had the tools at his finger tips to change his destiny and the world, to, in fact, challenge a professor (experts?) on the ideas that the professor had spent a life time divining and refining.
The "Age of Enlightenment" would never have happened without the invention of the Gutenberg Press nor had such a resounding impact on civilization, society, politics and religion. As the noted philosopher Francis Bacon wrote, the press was one of the three inventions that "changed the whole face and state of the world." The other two inventions, equally useful and democratizing, were the firearm and the compass.
The Gutenberg Press is most often noted as having printed hundreds of thousands of copies of the Bible in multiple languages. This ability to read and discern the religious texts by common laymen leads to the creation of religious sects by every other Tom, Dick and Martin Luther, directly challenging the orthodoxy and authority of the church in Rome.
The idea that new technology used to disseminate information, that permits the flattening of information and the democratization of knowledge, is dangerous as it may be abused by the uninformed to spread uninformed ideas is hardly new. I frequently imagine these types of conversations occurring in the Vatican about the time the one hundred thousandth Bible had been printed.
This new technology and democratization of information was dangerous. Largely for the order of things held sacrosanct. It led to the decimation of the organizational power of the Church and to religiously tinged political wars of empire. During these wars, thousands of "heretics", who imagined themselves capable of determining their own faith and fate of their souls, are tortured, hung and burned at the stake by either side of the divide.
The persecution of heretics eventually leads to mass exodus or exile to a newly discovered continent. Their travel aided and abetted by the compass, their defense in a hostile territory provided by the currently lamented firearm. A few hundred years later, the proliferation of firearms and ideas spread to every common man via the printing press (again) eventually results in a revolution and truths that are now commonly believed to be "self evident". The rest, as they say, is history.
It's not a bad history. During this same period from the invention of the press through the Age of Enlightenment, even as the world was turned upside down, the social order was irrevocably changed and everyone and anyone felt capable of challenging religious, political or even scientific orthodoxy, the one thing that did not happen was the ignoble demise of expertise. Rather, it led to the proliferation of universities and the demand for more experts and professors in every field.
Universities, education and the educator were irrevocably changed by this democratizing technology. It demanded that these professors (experts), be even more educated, to take their knowledge to greater heights (not moribund and stagnated), continuously refine that knowledge and be prepared to defend their ideas from all comers. While universities continued their age old traditions of learning at a master's knee and "peer to peer" review anointing another lettered professor, they did not and could not prevent ideas proliferating in the streets from sneaking in and up through the ranks, challenging perceived knowledge and, yes, improving educators and the educated alike.
For which we should be eternally grateful lest we still be writing with quills and ink pots by candlelight or being unmercifully bled for "ill humors" every time we felt a bit off. Looking at beautifully scripted letters in a book we could not touch, much less read. Subjects bound to land and lord begging for crumbs from his table, hoping that next winter he won't come out of his castle and destroy our crops because we objected to his onerous taxation. And, so on.
(Is it ironic that we are having this conversation via personal computers invented by men who never finished university?)
In conclusion, instead of fearing this technology and the challenges of the every man "layman", it should be celebrated. As history clearly shows, it is these moments, this convergence of technology and the democratization of knowledge, even the temerity of a poor layman to imagine his opinions and ideas equal to those of a professor, that leads to great leaps and bounds forward of human civilization, survival and proliferation of knowledge.
Dangers abound. There are barbarians at the gates and zealots ready to tear Hypatia from her carriage and stone her in the temple, but she is not dead yet. Indeed, instead of imagining the bliss of being shut away in that ivory tower, protected from the clamoring, uninformed masses, it should be embraced and nurtured. Because, surely as the sun rises in the east and the earth spins round the sun, this rejection runs counter to the tides of history and human advancement.
Unless we imagine the first caveman to pick up two stones and strike them together, creating fire, did so under the auspices of a professor?
I thank Prof. Nichols for the forum and opportunity to address his comments. Though I disagree with his opinion on this matter, I give full respect to his position and long years of education and experience. This is, after all, one of the reasons that I follow him: to receive knowledge and challenge my own. Possibly proving his point that knowledge is built upon knowledge of experts.
Finally, I thank that long ago blacksmith, Mr. Gutenberg. Without whom this common daughter of a policeman would never have had the tools or been so bold as to challenge the ideas of a professor.
God bless you, sirs, and God grant that our descendants look back in history to find this moment not the beginning of the next Dark Age, but the Second Age of Enlightenment.
I am sure I do not need to give Prof. Nichols a lesson in history, but, as I intend to use it as a point of contention with Prof. Nichols' complaints, I'll simply have to beg forgiveness for my presumption in doing so.
For the sake of the readers here, Hypatia was a well known female scholar in the city of Alexandria who was murdered by religious zealots circa 415 A.D. Her story or legend, what will you, has been used as an allegory for the destruction of reason by the ignorance of dogma represented by the uneducated and unwashed masses of religious zealots.
The event was handily married to one of the multitudinous destructions of the Library of Alexandria in the movie "Agora". A film I recommend even if some of the historical content (the sacking of the library illustrated takes place in 391 AD and drastically shortens the period after in which Hypatia is murdered) may prove inaccurate. It does capture the idea of "the death of reason" rather neatly and resounds with Prof. Nichols' polemic on "The Death of Expertise".
While I sympathize with the professor's position, I must disagree with him on his supposition. The current period of "flattening of information" and "the democratization of knowledge" does not equate to "the murder of Hypatia".
While it may feel chaotic and challenging, the advent of the internet (the flattening of information) along with scores of treatise, papers, e-books, websites, blogs and forums (professional and otherwise) with the appearance of professors, professionals and experts, such as Prof. Nichols and Prof. Schindler, enumerable conversations and challenges via this forum, Twitter, etc with all comers (the democratization of knowledge using tools that flatten information) would be comparable to more felicitous and momentous occasions in history.
Moments like the invention of the Gutenberg Press in 1450 (the flattening of information) at the height of the Renaissance thru the Age of Enlightenment where the ability to read, write and think critically or even independently began to filter down from higher echelons to the common people ("demo"; the Democratization of Knowledge). A period in time when even a butcher's son imagined that he had the tools at his finger tips to change his destiny and the world, to, in fact, challenge a professor (experts?) on the ideas that the professor had spent a life time divining and refining.
The "Age of Enlightenment" would never have happened without the invention of the Gutenberg Press nor had such a resounding impact on civilization, society, politics and religion. As the noted philosopher Francis Bacon wrote, the press was one of the three inventions that "changed the whole face and state of the world." The other two inventions, equally useful and democratizing, were the firearm and the compass.
The Gutenberg Press is most often noted as having printed hundreds of thousands of copies of the Bible in multiple languages. This ability to read and discern the religious texts by common laymen leads to the creation of religious sects by every other Tom, Dick and Martin Luther, directly challenging the orthodoxy and authority of the church in Rome.
The idea that new technology used to disseminate information, that permits the flattening of information and the democratization of knowledge, is dangerous as it may be abused by the uninformed to spread uninformed ideas is hardly new. I frequently imagine these types of conversations occurring in the Vatican about the time the one hundred thousandth Bible had been printed.
This new technology and democratization of information was dangerous. Largely for the order of things held sacrosanct. It led to the decimation of the organizational power of the Church and to religiously tinged political wars of empire. During these wars, thousands of "heretics", who imagined themselves capable of determining their own faith and fate of their souls, are tortured, hung and burned at the stake by either side of the divide.
The persecution of heretics eventually leads to mass exodus or exile to a newly discovered continent. Their travel aided and abetted by the compass, their defense in a hostile territory provided by the currently lamented firearm. A few hundred years later, the proliferation of firearms and ideas spread to every common man via the printing press (again) eventually results in a revolution and truths that are now commonly believed to be "self evident". The rest, as they say, is history.
It's not a bad history. During this same period from the invention of the press through the Age of Enlightenment, even as the world was turned upside down, the social order was irrevocably changed and everyone and anyone felt capable of challenging religious, political or even scientific orthodoxy, the one thing that did not happen was the ignoble demise of expertise. Rather, it led to the proliferation of universities and the demand for more experts and professors in every field.
Universities, education and the educator were irrevocably changed by this democratizing technology. It demanded that these professors (experts), be even more educated, to take their knowledge to greater heights (not moribund and stagnated), continuously refine that knowledge and be prepared to defend their ideas from all comers. While universities continued their age old traditions of learning at a master's knee and "peer to peer" review anointing another lettered professor, they did not and could not prevent ideas proliferating in the streets from sneaking in and up through the ranks, challenging perceived knowledge and, yes, improving educators and the educated alike.
For which we should be eternally grateful lest we still be writing with quills and ink pots by candlelight or being unmercifully bled for "ill humors" every time we felt a bit off. Looking at beautifully scripted letters in a book we could not touch, much less read. Subjects bound to land and lord begging for crumbs from his table, hoping that next winter he won't come out of his castle and destroy our crops because we objected to his onerous taxation. And, so on.
(Is it ironic that we are having this conversation via personal computers invented by men who never finished university?)
In conclusion, instead of fearing this technology and the challenges of the every man "layman", it should be celebrated. As history clearly shows, it is these moments, this convergence of technology and the democratization of knowledge, even the temerity of a poor layman to imagine his opinions and ideas equal to those of a professor, that leads to great leaps and bounds forward of human civilization, survival and proliferation of knowledge.
Dangers abound. There are barbarians at the gates and zealots ready to tear Hypatia from her carriage and stone her in the temple, but she is not dead yet. Indeed, instead of imagining the bliss of being shut away in that ivory tower, protected from the clamoring, uninformed masses, it should be embraced and nurtured. Because, surely as the sun rises in the east and the earth spins round the sun, this rejection runs counter to the tides of history and human advancement.
Unless we imagine the first caveman to pick up two stones and strike them together, creating fire, did so under the auspices of a professor?
I thank Prof. Nichols for the forum and opportunity to address his comments. Though I disagree with his opinion on this matter, I give full respect to his position and long years of education and experience. This is, after all, one of the reasons that I follow him: to receive knowledge and challenge my own. Possibly proving his point that knowledge is built upon knowledge of experts.
Finally, I thank that long ago blacksmith, Mr. Gutenberg. Without whom this common daughter of a policeman would never have had the tools or been so bold as to challenge the ideas of a professor.
God bless you, sirs, and God grant that our descendants look back in history to find this moment not the beginning of the next Dark Age, but the Second Age of Enlightenment.
This is more or less what I said, for all that I said it more allusively. Well done.
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