**This was posted a week or so ago, and I got a lot of reactions to it—positive and sort of negative. Some of the latter were more in the area of factual errors I might have made, rather than “you’re totally wrong”, so I’m re-posting now with some of those corrections incorporated. All edits and reactions are in blue.**
How does one react to laws and practices that seem to be unfair or bordering on immoral? What is unfair and immoral depends on one’s point of view, of course. Scientists and philosophers argue whether we have a built-in evolved sense of morality that our laws are meant to reinforce and uphold- that may or may not be, but many laws and behaviors while legal may, in retrospect, be considered immoral.
As I think about how laws and behaviors get changed I suspect we should be following, amongst others, the example of Gandhi or the Civil Rights activists in the Southern U.S. who sat at lunch counters where they weren’t allowed and refused to ride in the back of busses—or automatically give up their seats for white people. Rosa Parks is a good example.
And these folks were sometimes willingly and peacefully hauled off to jail as a result—all very peaceful and civil though they were often also harassed by locals. Here is a policeman harassing folks who want to sit at a lunch counter in Oklahoma.
Draft resisters who opposed the Vietnam War similarly voluntarily went to prison. All of these people opposed laws that were accepted, on the books, but that they decided were unjust. Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Dept. employee who eventually decided to distribute what became known as the Pentagon Papers described the moment when he decided that he had to take action in response to what he felt was an unjust war:
“And he [Randy Kehler, a draft resister] said this very calmly. I hadn't known that he was about to be sentenced for draft resistance. It hit me as a total surprise and shock, because I heard his words in the midst of actually feeling proud of my country listening to him. And then I heard he was going to prison. It wasn't what he said exactly that changed my worldview. It was the example he was setting with his life. How his words in general showed that he was a stellar American, and that he was going to jail as a very deliberate choice—because he thought it was the right thing to do. There was no question in my mind that my government was involved in an unjust war that was going to continue and get larger.” Source
Ellsberg decided to release The Pentagon Papers. These were documents that made clear the hubris and hypocritical decisions made by politicians and generals that were affecting soldiers on the ground in Vietnam. Though many of us suspected that what was contained in these documents was already common knowledge, to make it public and verifiable was a big step. I would argue that his actions—and the subsequent publishing of the papers in the NY Times and Washington Post—hastened the end of the Vietnam War (as the Wikileaks data leaks have, in my opinion, hastened the ending of the U.S.-backed invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan). I cheered both of these revelations, partly because I too felt that both wars are unjust and immoral.
Ellsberg was, like his inspiration Kehler, willing to face the consequences and publicly surrendered to the Boston DA’s office, facing charges that carried a maximum sentence of 115 years. In admitting to giving the documents to the press, Ellsberg said:
“I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.” Source
Civil Disobedience in the Internet Age
Is there a contemporary equivalent to these actions? If we, as citizens, feel an injustice, an immoral act is being committed in our name, in our nations name, are these models effective ways to draw attention to it? To eventually effect change?
Passive resistance is sometimes dangerous—a young woman who sat down in front of some Israeli bulldozers as a protest against illegal settlements was killed. That’s worse than the threat of going to prison. My mom was threatened when she protested the invasion of Iraq.
One key aspect in the success of non-violent protest is the fact that it relies on media being present. Otherwise, it doesn’t draw attention to the issue, and similarly, the action has to be done publicly. Transparency is key. Me privately deciding not to pay taxes that go to the invasion of Iraq, to take a hypothetical example, doesn’t serve as a very effective protest unless I crank up a publicity machine, let everyone know I’m doing this as a protest, and then willingly face the consequences.
I’ve been following the canonization of young Aaron Swartz—the coder, hacker, and digital rights activist—after his recent tragic suicide. For those who haven’t been following this, it seems he surreptitiously set up his personal computer to download many, many academic papers from the academic database, JSTOR, through MIT’s open network. Why did he do this? Do we know? Was it a crime?
It took a little poking in the Internet, but it seems this theft of data was Swartz’s own form of civil disobedience. Here is what he wrote:
“Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world’s entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You’ll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.” Source
Later in his manifesto he suggests a mass movement devoted to “liberating” this data that is “locked up”:
“Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly by. You have been sneaking through holes and climbing over fences, liberating the information locked up by the publishers and sharing them with your friends.
But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It’s called stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn’t immoral — it’s a moral imperative. Only those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.” Source
So, we can assume he covertly downloaded the data to draw attention to a perceived injustice—that he felt that the academic papers in the JSTOR archive were unfairly behind a paywall and should be available to all. Following the imperative of his manifesto one might assume he was going to give them all away—to make them free, as he thought they should be. But he didn’t. (He certainly wasn’t going to sell them himself.)
He hid his face from library cameras, so he didn’t want to get caught in the act—though maybe he thought it was going to be OK and he wouldn’t actually get caught. Sort of an unreasonable assumption given that someone makes money on this stuff (but given his skills as a coder maybe it was not an unreasonable assumption). We also might assume that he was then going to proudly and publicly announce that he had “liberated” these documents to draw attention to his position. Transparency, as mentioned above, is key to the effectiveness of this kind of protest. This publicised “liberation” would also be a sort of “come and get me” action. Like the Civil Rights activists, he would, one might assume, be willing to face the consequences in order to draw attention to this perceived injustice. I don’t think he did that either. He was a disturbed young man, and seems to have hesitated in carrying out the typical civil disobedience MO.
What bothered him so much about this archive of data behind a paywall?
What’s the deal with these academic archives? How do they typically work?
Like music and movies that are legally controlled by copyright holders—typically movie studios or record companies—many academic databases contain papers and other material that are proprietary. Institutions or individuals therefore have to subscribe to access them or pay a fee to get to download these papers. LexisNexis is one such academic site in which the material is protected by a pay wall; Swartz downloaded his documents from a similar database called JSTOR. Needless to say, he didn’t pay for them.
Where does the money that subscribers pay to these services go? Do the poor academics who did the research and wrote the papers get some part of those fees? It has been pointed out to me [by Cory Doctorow] that this never happens—they never get paid for their contributions to these journals. Academics get paid a salary by their institutions, and are obliged, but not paid, to publish papers like the ones stored in JSTOR. Part of the deal is also that they hand over their copyrights as well—worse than the record business!
They don’t get paid for publishing these papers, but they have to publish in the journals to eventually get tenure and keep up their academic standing. They usually publish their work first in various academic print journals, and it is often these journals that by default post their papers on JSTOR or similar sites. The academic is, one might say, coerced into placing their work behind the paywall. Record companies who own the copyright on many of my recordings place those recordings in places where I might not wish them to be—it’s an ongoing battle… and another story. JSTOR and others funnel their income to the print journals who own the rights to the papers. One hopes the journals would pass some of that income on to the writers. This reminds me of my own pathetic income from Spotify and other services that record companies (who own the copyright on some recordings) place my recordings on—the income I get is so small that it’s essentially nothing. The record companies get the lions share.
I can empathize both with academics who might either want to monetize their research or those who might want to make it freely available to all—and the choice, ideally, should be the authors’. One would assume that this is one of the issues young Swartz was trying to draw attention to.
LeeAnn Rossi writes—in the case of JSTOR, institutions pay a one-time Archive Capital Fee (which fluctuates based on size of institution and amount of access to documents granted) plus an Annual Access Fee. From the breakdown of their 2008 tax documents, it looks like they [JSTOR] made $43m and had expenditures of $35m, giving them an $8m profit (they're registered as a non-profit organization). Of those expenditures, $8.3m were under the line item "Publisher's Fees and Payments", though there is no breakdown for how the Publisher accounts to the Author on the backend. From this article—it sounds like the name of the game in the academic world is that authors and scientists don't get paid for their peer-reviewed work in journals or on databases at all. Another anti-academic publishing article ironically ends with a nod to this article, which you can't read because it's behind a paywall.
Ultimately that is all irrelevant, the point is the owners of this material have their work behind these pay walls. The authors were coerced maybe, unfairly, probably, but there it is. It’s legal. Unfair maybe, but legal. Swartz, as I understand it, was an advocate for “free”—that all of this information (and presumably much other copyrighted material) created by others should ideally be free and available to all. Information, especially scientific and academic information, should, in this view, be intrinsically shared. Information, like that contained in these papers, is what scholars use to inspire themselves and it often serves a foundation for their own research. They therefore don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time they begin some avenue of research—which would cause research to proceed at a snails pace. I agree with this idea—with the added clause that whether something is free or monetized should be entirely up to the author.
Archives like JSTOR also, according to Swartz, buy up research and papers that are in the public domain, then lock them up and privatize them, as a way of profiting from works that were once available to all. While I can see that there might be some minimal admin charge for organizing and storing all this data, this seems incredibly greedy. Orphaned works should, I agree, enter the public domain—and stay that way.
LeeAnn writes again—He was mostly fighting against what he saw as corporations owning and profiting off of something that was produced and owned by individuals who not only never recieved any compensation for their work, but also never produced it with profit in mind in the first place.
There is a big difference in my opinion between using someone else’s work as inspiration and as a stepping-stone and using that work—or work that incorporates that work—as a way to make money. I am happy, for example, for people to slice and dice my recordings—recordings they have legally obtained—and play around with them to their hearts content as long as they don’t decide to make money from that new work—either directly or indirectly. I am, I think, quite open about sharing income if someone builds on my work—but the crucial concept is “share”. (I have to point out that even posting songs on YouTube these days is in fact selling something—it is often monetizing someone else’s work. YouTube makes money on the ads that are all over their site. It’s not an altruistic “sharing service”.) I have no problem, for example, if someone performs a Talking Heads song or creates a video with their cat that uses it. But the fact is that all these services like You Tube and Facebook are filled with ads now, so someone is making money somewhere. It’s ripping off not just me and the corporate owner of that recording, but the filmmaker with the cat as well.
But back to civil disobedience. Swartz stole the material, pure and simple, and he seems to feel that he and others have, in this case, the right to steal because they are beholden to a higher moral standard. I am sort of fine with this if he’s willing to accept the consequences, as Ellsberg and the Civil Rights activists were. I sort of feel the same way about Wikileaks—though much of the data they make available wasn’t “stolen” by them directly, though they do know that under many nation’s laws disseminating that data is illegal. (Significantly, the NY Times and Washington Post were not prosecuted for printing the Pentagon Papers—though Nixon tried to do so—and these same papers were not thrown in jail for printing Wikileaks excerpts. So when is dissemination a crime and when is it not? What’s the difference between Wikileaks disseminating stuff online and the NY Times disseminating that very same stuff on their own website?) And as much as I’m glad these files made the horrors of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq obvious, Assange might face jail under U.S. law—though I’m happy that more corporate and military misbehaviors are made public.
If Ellsberg and the civil rights activists were willing to go to jail, should Assange and Swartz and formerNY Times editor Bill Keller and (Oh jeez, am I writing this?) poor Bradley Manning also be publicly willing go to jail too?
I’m going to shift the subject for a minute.
I wonder where one draws the line with the claim of “higher morality” as a justification for breaking the law.Conversely, when do acts based on one’s personal moral indignation become unjustified? I empathize with many of the actions above, but there are many acts made by those who similarly claim to be impelled by a higher moral calling that I find repellant and horrible.
Lots of religious fanatics also claim to be acting based on higher moral standards—and they’re quite public about it: lunatics, building bombers, abortion clinic bombers. Lots of wars have been fought by the U.S. and others based on claims that God is on our side—as an argument it’s pretty risky. Anyone can make it. In the case of civil disobedience, a lot depends on public opinion and how the media delivers the news of the action to that public. It also depends on that transparency, which allows one to hold the moral high ground. In some cases, it is assumed that the civil disobedience is not doing a lot of harm. Unlike the morally justified abortion clinic bombings mentioned above, no one was harmed by Rosa Parks, but I’m sure the Nixon administration made a case that Ellsberg’s leaks damaged national security—as the Obama administration has done with the Wikileaks material.
In civil disobedience actions it’s critical how the acts play out in public—that the perception be that the consequences are good, not harm.
This reminds me of the way the entertainment industries often overreacted to kids and grannies who were busted for file sharing (downloading copyright material without paying for it). By overreacting, the institutions helped folks to empathize with those they were prosecuting. The grannies weren’t engaging in civil disobedience though.
However, Swartz wasn’t totally transparent and he fought back. If Swartz had admitted the theft and publicized his willingness to go to jail, as did the civil disobedience activists mentioned above, thereby bringing attention to the inordinate punishment he was about to receive and to the inequities of databases like JSTOR, then he might have better made his point—in my opinion. He was, as I have read, a disturbed young man who maybe sadly wasn’t quite psychologically ready to be a Gandhi figure—should he have realized this ahead of time? Hypothetical and impossible to answer now, as his tragic suicide has clouded the issue.
I am reminded how Jean Valjean, who stole a loaf of bread in the novel Les Mis, was unfairly punished by the authorities—which eventually highlighted the need to overthrow the royalty. He didn’t steal the bread as a form of civil disobedience, but I seem to remember it functions in the narrative in much the same way.
Swartz’s actions as a form of civil disobedience are very confusing for me. It’s not like he didn’t know he was doing anything wrong. He hid his laptop and hard drive in a little closet at MIT and hid from security cameras when he went there to retrieve his data trove. Imagine, as MIT seems to have briefly done, that it was the Chinese or North Koreans or some other entity stealing this data (and it very well could have been)—the “higher moral grounds” defense would then seem pretty ridiculous. Cory Doctorow has pointed out that China or North Korea wouldn’t need to steal this particular data, but my point here was more about the sneaky way that Swartz went about obtaining data that was supposedly gathered in a legal and upstanding way.
I don’t disagree with many of Swartz’s points. I can certainly see the point that much academic data, when freely available, can have a greater chance to spur insights and creativity from researchers and scientists around the world than if it is locked up behind paywalls. Withholding cancer research from academics who can’t afford access because a big pharmaceutical company “owns” the data doesn’t seem like a very morally defensible position—even if it is what the law might say is perfectly legal.
But who then decides what data “deserves” to be stolen and “liberated”? There are all sorts of data. Some of it is—though I hate to admit it—possibly essential to our security, and some is strictly personal and deserves to stay that way. It’s complicated, and this particular case seems messy—though Swartz’s points are mostly valid… but maybe his method was sloppy.
How does one react to laws
and practices that seem to be unfair or bordering on immoral? What is unfair
and immoral depends on one’s point of view, of course. As I think about this I
suspect we should be following the example of Gandhi or the Civil Rights
activists in the Southern U.S. who sat at lunch counters where they weren’t
allowed and refused to ride in the back of busses—or automatically give up
their seats for white people.
And these folks were sometimes willingly and peacefully
hauled off to jail as a result—though they were often also harassed by locals.
Here is a policeman harassing folks who want to sit at a lunch counter in Oklahoma.
Draft resisters who opposed the Vietnam War similarly voluntarily
went to prison. All of these people opposed laws that were accepted, on
the books, but that they decided were unjust. Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense
Dept. employee who eventually decided to distribute what became known as the
Pentagon Papers described the moment when he decided that he had to take action
in response to what he felt was an unjust war:
“And he [Randy Kehler, a draft resister] said this very calmly. I
hadn't known that he was about to be sentenced for draft resistance. It hit me
as a total surprise and shock, because I heard his words in the midst of actually
feeling proud of my country listening to him. And then I heard he was going to
prison. It wasn't what he said exactly that changed my worldview. It was the
example he was setting with his life. How his words in general showed that he
was a stellar American, and that he was going to jail as a very deliberate
choice—because he thought it was the right thing to do. There was no question
in my mind that my government was involved in an unjust war that was going to
continue and get larger.” Source
Ellsberg decided to release The Pentagon Papers. These were
documents that made clear the hubris and hypocritical decisions that were
affecting soldiers on the ground in Vietnam. Though many of us suspected that
what was contained in these documents was already common knowledge, to make it
public and verifiable was a big step. I would argue that his actions—and the
subsequent publishing of the papers in the NY
Times and Washington Post—hastened
the end of the Vietnam War (as the Wikileaks data leaks have, in my opinion,
hastened the ending of the U.S.-backed invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan).
Ellsberg was, like his inspiration Kehler, willing to face
the consequences and publicly surrendered to the Boston DA's office,
facing charges that carried a maximum sentence of 115 years. In admitting to
giving the documents to the press, Ellsberg said:
“I
felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer
cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this
clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences
of this decision.” Source
Is there a contemporary equivalent to these actions? If we,
as citizens, feel an injustice, an immoral act is being committed in our name,
in our nations name—is this a model of an effective way to draw attention to
it? To effect change?
It’s sometimes dangerous—a young woman who sat down in front
of some Israeli bulldozers as a protest against illegal settlements was killed.
That’s worse than the threat of going to prison. One aspect of this kind
non-violent of protest is the fact that it relies on media being present.
Otherwise, it doesn’t draw attention to the issue, and similarly, the action
has to be done publicly. Me privately deciding not to pay taxes that go towards the
invasion of Iraq, to take a hypothetical example, doesn’t serve as a protest
unless I crank up a publicity machine, let everyone know I’m doing this as a
protest, and then willingly face the consequences.
I’ve been following the canonization of young Aaron Swartz—the coder, hacker, and
digital rights activist—after his recent tragic suicide. For those who haven’t
been following this, it seems he illegally hacked his way into an MIT database
that contained many, many academic and technical papers and downloaded them
onto his hard drive, rather than paying for access. Why did he do this? Do we
know?
It took a little poking in the Internet, but it seems this
theft of data was Swartz’s own form of civil disobedience. Here is what he
wrote:
“Information is power. But like all power, there are
those who want to keep it for themselves. The world’s entire scientific and
cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is
increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private
corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the
sciences? You’ll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed
Elsevier.” Source
Later in his manifesto he suggests “liberating” this data
that is “locked up”:
“Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly
by. You have been sneaking through holes and climbing over fences, liberating
the information locked up by the publishers and sharing them with your friends.
But all of this action goes on in the dark,
hidden underground. It’s called stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth of
knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a ship and murdering its
crew. But sharing isn’t immoral — it’s a moral imperative. Only those blinded
by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.” Source
So, we can assume he covertly stole the data to draw
attention to a perceived injustice—that he felt that the academic papers in the
JSTOR archive were unfairly behind a paywall and should be available to all.
Following the imperative of his manifesto one might assume he was going to give
them all away—to make them free, as he thought they should be. He didn’t. (He
certainly wasn’t going to sell them himself.)
His theft was done surreptitiously, so it seems he didn’t
want to get caught in the act, though maybe he thought it was going to be OK
and he wouldn’t actually get caught. Sort of an unreasonable assumption given
that someone makes money on this stuff—but given his skills as a coder and
hacker, maybe not an unreasonable assumption. We also might assume that he was then going to proudly and
publicly announce that he had “liberated” these documents to draw attention to
his position. This public “liberation” would also be a sort of “come and get
me” action. Like the Civil Rights activists, he would, one might assume, be
willing to face the consequences in order to draw attention to this perceived
injustice. I don’t think he did that either. He was a disturbed young man, and
seems to have hesitated in carrying out the typical civil disobedience agenda.
What bothered him so much about this archive of data behind
a paywall?
What’s the deal with these academic archives? How do they
typically work?
Like music and movies that are legally controlled by
copyright holders—typically movie studios or record companies—many academic databases
contain papers and other material that are proprietary. Institutions or
individuals therefore have to subscribe to access them or pay a fee to get to
download these papers. LexisNexis is one such academic site in which the
material is protected by a pay wall; Swartz downloaded his documents from a
similar database called JSTOR. Needless to say, he didn’t pay for them.
Where does the money that subscribers pay to these services
go? Do the poor academics who did the research and wrote the papers get some
part of those fees? One would hope so, but I have my doubts that they get very
much of it. Academics get paid by their institutions, and are obliged, but not
paid, to publish papers like the ones stored in JSTOR. They don’t necessarily
get paid for publishing these papers, but they have to do so to eventually get
tenure and keep up their academic standing. They usually publish their work in various
academic print journals, and it is often the journals that by default post their
papers on JSTOR or similar sites. The academic is, one might say, coerced into
placing their work behind the paywall. Record companies who own the copyright
on many of my recordings place those recordings in places where I might not
wish them to be—it’s an ongoing battle… another story. JSTOR and others funnel
their income to the journals who own the rights to the papers. One hopes the
journals would pass some of that income on to the writers. This reminds me of
my own pathetic income from Spotify and other services that record companies
place my recordings on—the income I get is so small that it’s essentially
nothing.
While I can empathize both with academics who might either
want to monetize their research or those who might want to make it freely
available to all—the choice, ideally, should be the authors’. One would assume
that this is one of the issues young Swartz was trying to draw attention to.
LeeAnn Rossi writes—in
the case of JSTOR, institutions pay a one-time Archive Capital Fee (which
fluctuates based on size of institution and amount of access to documents
granted) plus an Annual Access Fee. From the breakdown of their 2008 tax
documents, it looks like they [JSTOR] made $43m and had expenditures of $35m,
giving them an $8m profit (they're registered as a non-profit organization). Of
those expenditures, $8.3m were under the line item "Publisher's Fees and
Payments", though there is no breakdown for how the Publisher accounts to
the Author on the backend. From this
article—it sounds like the name of the game in the academic world is that
authors and scientists don't get paid for their peer-reviewed work in journals
or on databases at all. Another
anti-academic publishing article ironically ends with a nod to this
article, which you can't read because it's behind a paywall.
Ultimately that is all irrelevant, the point is the owners
of this material have their work behind these pay walls. The authors were
coerced maybe, unfairly, probably, but there it is. It’s legal. Unfair maybe,
but legal. Swartz, as I understand it, was an advocate for “free”—that all of
this information (and presumably much other copyrighted material) created by
others should ideally be free and available to all. Information, especially
scientific and academic information, should, in this view, be intrinsically
shared. Information, like that contained in these papers, is what scholars use
to inspire themselves and it often serves a foundation for their own research.
They therefore don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time they begin some
avenue of research—which would cause research to proceed at a snails pace.
Archives like JSTOR also, according to Swartz, buy up
research and papers that are in the public domain, lock them up and then privatize
them, as a way of profiting from works that were once available to all.
LeeAnn writes again—He was mostly
fighting against what he saw as corporations owning and profiting off of
something that was produced and owned by individuals who not only never
recieved any compensation for their work, but also never produced it with
profit in mind in the first place.
There is a big difference in my opinion between using
someone else’s work as inspiration and as a stepping-stone and using that work—or work that incorporates that work—as a way to make money. I am happy, for
example, for people to slice and dice my recordings, for example, recordings
they have legally obtained, and play around with them to their hearts content
as long as they don’t decide to make money from their work—either directly or
indirectly. I am, I think, quite open about sharing income if someone builds on
my work—but the crucial concept is “share”. (I have to point out that even posting
songs on YouTube these days is in fact selling something—it is monetizing
someone else’s work. YouTube makes money on the ads that are all over their
site. It’s not an altruistic “sharing service”.)
But back to civil disobedience. Swartz stole the material,
pure and simple, and he seems to feel that he and others have, in this case,
the right to steal because they are beholden to a higher moral standard. I am
sort of fine with this if he’s willing to accept the consequences, as Ellsberg and
the Civil Rights activists were. I sort of feel the same way about Wikileaks—though
much of the data they make available wasn’t “stolen” by them, they do know that
under many nation’s laws disseminating that data is illegal. (Significantly,
the NY Times and Washington Post were not prosecuted for printing the Pentagon
Papers—though Nixon tried to do so—and these same papers were not thrown in
jail for printing Wikileaks excerpts.) And as much as I’m glad they made the
horrors of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq obvious, Assange might face jail under
U.S. law—though I’m happy that more corporate and military misbehaviors are
made public.
If Ellsberg and the Civil Rights activists were willing to
go to jail, should Assange and Swartz and (Oh jeez, am I writing this?) poor
Bradley Manning be willing go to jail too?
I’m going to shift the subject for a minute.
I wonder where one draws the line with “higher morality”
used as a justification for breaking the law. When do acts based on one’s moral
indignation become unjustified? I empathize with many of the actions above, but
there are also acts made by those who similarly claim to be impelled by a
higher moral calling that I find repellant and horrible.
Lots of religious fanatics claim to be acting based on
higher moral standards—and they’re quite public about it: lunatics, building
bombers, abortion clinic bombers. Lots of wars have been fought by the U.S. and
others based on claims that God is on our side—as an argument it’s pretty
risky. In the case of civil disobedience, a lot depends on public opinion and
how the media delivers the news of the action to that public. In some cases, it
is assumed that the civil disobedience is not doing a lot of harm—unlike abortion
clinic bombings mentioned above. No one was harmed by Rosa Parks, certainly,
but I’m sure the Nixon administration made a case that Ellsberg’s leaks damaged
national security—as the Obama administration has done with the Wikileaks
material.
In civil disobedience actions it’s critical how the acts
play out in public—that the perception be that they have done good, not harm.
This reminds me of the way the
entertainment industries often overreacted to kids and grannies who were busted
for file sharing (downloading copyright material without paying for it). By
overreacting, the institutions helped folks to empathize with those they were
prosecuting.
However, Swartz fought back. If Swartz had admitted the
theft and publicized his willingness to go to jail, as did the civil
disobedience activists above, thereby bringing attention to the inordinate
punishment he was receiving and to the inequities of databases like JSTOR, then
he might have better made his point—in my opinion. In my opinion this was a bad
move. He was, as I have read, a disturbed young man who maybe sadly wasn’t
quite psychologically ready to be a Gandhi figure—should he have realized this
ahead of time?
I am reminded how Jean Valjean, who stole a loaf of bread in
the novel Les Mis, was unfairly
punished by the authorities—which highlighted the need to overthrow the
royalty.
In much of the recent discussion, Swartz is portrayed as a
martyr. The fact that, yes, he is also legally a thief, is almost never
mentioned. The emphasis tends towards lauding his advocacy (see higher
principals, above) and there is often mention of his known mental instability,
a fact that made him particularly susceptible to the kinds of harassment the
Feds seem to have engaged in.
I don’t disagree with many of Swartz’s points. I can
certainly see the point that much academic data, when freely available, can
have a greater chance to spur insights and creativity from researchers and
scientists around the world than if it is locked up behind paywalls. Withholding
cancer research from academics who can’t afford access because a big
pharmaceutical company “owns” the data doesn’t seem like a very morally
defensible position—even if it is what the law might say is perfectly legal.
But who then decides what data “deserves” to be stolen and
“liberated”? There are all sorts of data. Some of it is—though I hate to admit
it—possibly essential to our security, and some is strictly personal and
deserves to stay that way. It’s complicated, and this particular case seems
messy—though Swartz’s points are mostly valid… but maybe his method was sloppy.
Here is a NY Times
photo of the children of the Mullets—the Amish clan in Ohio where 16 members,
led by charismatic elder Samuel Mullet Sr., went on a tonsorial rampage,
cutting off the hair of many of their neighbors, whom they claimed were
deviating from the true path. This has nothing to do with the hair style often
referred to as the mullet. At least I don’t think so.
Part of that is the similar dress, but a big part is the
composition and POV, which seems to be a slightly elevated, psychologically
objective view. Whether the photographer or editor was aware of this
coincidence—consciously or subconsciously—and chose the picture and cropped it
accordingly, is a puzzle. The prevalence of these similarities makes me think
that there might be archetypical visual compositions we unconsciously gravitate
towards. It’s not a new idea. John Berger, the writer and art critic, wrote
about this phenomenon many years ago, noting the striking similarity
between this picture of the murdered Che and the Rembrandt painting of an
anatomy lesson:
Do we have artwork pre-existing in our brains? Have we
evolved to find certain patterns and images more resonant than others? It
sounds ridiculous when I put it that way, but these similarities occur over and
over—the images are powerful, memorable, and iconographic.
Oliver Sacks, in his new book, Hallucinations, goes further. Sacks suggests that religious imagery
and popular, powerful iconography come from neurological processes which are
sometimes the result of damage or injuries or other phenomena that happen
fairly frequently. The kinds of images the brain creates—sometimes abstract
shapes and sometimes emotionally evocative scenes—fall into recognizable patterns.
Angels, spiders, doppelgangers (some of whom are imagined to be bent on
replacing oneself), witches and their cats, tunnels with light at the end, out
of body experiences, fractured stained glass-type patterns, and cubist
fragmented reality—they all, Sacks implies, have natural, though sometimes
extraordinary, explanations. We often ascribe spiritual explanations to these
phenomena, as they are so peculiar and moving—no other explanation is
available.
Does this explain the similar composition in the photo of
Che and Rembrandt’s Lesson? What
about the seemingly elevated out of body POV in the photo of the Mullet
children and the Bruegel painting? Are there neurological explanations as to
why we find ourselves drawn to these images?
But back to the haircuts.
The folks who were inspired (but not directed, Mullet Sr.
claims) by their elder all belong to the extended Mullet family, who live in a
rural area of Eastern Ohio. They felt that some of their neighbors were
straying from the path, getting too influenced by the “English” (their word for
American mainstream culture), and needed to be punished as a way of getting
them to straighten up. In Amish culture, as in some other religious groups,
one’s hair and beard are sacred. They are not just hairstyles but symbols of
one’s faith, and they are an important part of one’s personal standing in the
community. To have them violated is a grave and profound humiliation, a
disfigurement, a mark of shame. So, to make their point these enforcers
kidnapped their victims and cut their hair and beards.
Obviously, as with the recent child molesting issues in the
Brooklyn Hasidic community, they wanted to keep these matters within their community. They hoped that their system of justice would handle it quietly and
no outsiders would catch wind what was going on.
Something
went wrong in Ohio, though, and the haircutters got arrested.
Because of the profound effect these attacks had on the
victims, they were considered hate crimes, and these people are facing serious
jail sentences. As outsiders, we can understand punishing someone for
kidnapping—that seems to be accepted as a serious social infraction—but haircutting?
Look at those haircuts! In another context one might think that having an
acceptable Amish haircut would be humiliating all by itself! One is asked to
imagine the damage the hair and beard cuts did to those within the community
and not just consider what they would mean to us.
A friend wonders what will happen to those dancing children.
If
all of the accused go to jail, then the whole community is not only left
without moms and dads, they are left without caretakers and breadwinners—no
sources of income. Won’t the communities then collapse, and are the children
therefore being punished for the misbehavior of their parents?
Well, yeah, and my thought is “That’s what happens when a
parent goes to jail.” The difference here is that this is a whole community
that is being gutted, while we assume that other parents in jail result in
isolated cases of families being destroyed, not a whole community. But that’s
not true—the majority of dads in jail in the U.S. are black and Hispanic. One
could certainly say that those communities have been similarly gutted, and that
their children have been forced to grow up in extraordinary circumstances.
I tend to believe that one has to live in a way that doesn’t
harm others, and that if harm is done then the society can be empowered to deal
with it. That means that—in my view—gay sex, plural marriage, punk songs sung
in church, and bad haircuts don’t really do any harm—probably none at all if both
parties are consenting adults. But the kidnapping and lack of consent regarding
the haircuts does indeed cross a line.
My friend, who is a mother, might see things from a mother’s
point of view, and automatically think “What will happen to the children?” She might think that the long-term damage done to them is possibly
worse than the damage inflicted by the kidnappings and haircuts. That’s
probably true, but only because they were just—in our “English” eyes—haircuts.
If these guys had physically maimed their victims or worse, then we’d feel that
justice must be served to preserve the greater welfare and order of society—and
possibly that the destruction of their community is justified as collateral
damage.
Now we get into a really sticky issue—is the charismatic
elder, Sam Mullet Sr., who didn’t participate and (he claims) didn’t encourage
the kidnappings and haircuts, also guilty? The court says he helped plan the
crimes, so he’s guilty of telling someone else to do something.
The fact that, like Charles Manson, he didn’t actually
participate in the crimes, raises, for me, the question of free will. In its
verdict, the court believes that the perps were obliged in some way to obey the
suggestions of Mr. Mullet, and that they were therefore not in full possession
of their moral and reasoning facilities. They are excused, in some sense, as it
is accepted that they somehow felt that they had to commit these acts—they had no choice. It is assumed that our
leaders have us hypnotized.
There it is. Do we have a choice as individuals? Could these
guys have said, “Hold on a minute, we could get in serious trouble for this.”
Or “Those guys are blasphemers, but disfiguring them isn’t going to help.”
Could the Manson girls have similarly said, “No, we might be outlaws and
outsiders, but we don’t kill innocents.” Do soldiers have a similar
responsibility? We don’t hold soldiers on either side responsible for the
murders they commit—we tend to hold their leaders, the Sam Mullet’s of their
nations, responsible. (The exceptions are when the war crimes are committed by
our side, as with My Lai or Abu Ghraib—then the little soldiers become the fall
guys.)
I would like to believe that we all as individuals have the
power to step back, examine our actions, and determine whether or not they
adhere to, not just the laws of the land, but to a moral code that allows a
society to function. What if, as John and Yoko suggested, our soldiers in
Afghanistan said to themselves “Hell, they don’t want us here. We’re not doing
any good, not really. Let’s put down our guns and go home.” Granted we might
not know whether a product we buy is produced by child labor, but we certainly
know when we’re kidnapping or killing someone.
Well, it’s not a soldier’s job to see the big picture and
make individual decisions. If they did there’d be chaos and endless discussions
on the battlefield or in the drone control centers. Like a sports team, the
only way there can be success on the battlefield is if everyone pulls together
and refrains from questioning the action. Cooperation absolves one of responsibility,
it seems. If one wins a game, the whole team wins; if the team loses, it’s not
one player’s fault.
Likewise, the overly strict Mr. Mullet assumes that he is
helping the Amish community cohere, survive, and achieve spiritual unity by
punishing strays. In his view, only by cooperation can the team “win,” and
sometimes that cooperation needs to be coerced—as it does in the military
(where deserters are often shot).
It was a weird week. Uptown and in Brooklyn, and in many
other places somewhat more remote, life went on as normal. I know, because I
visited those countries and saw this with my own eyes. What was weird was that
these other countries are so close—thousands of Recharge zombies would trek
over the Williamsburg Bridge or up the avenues to visit friends who lived there
with power, or they’d huddle around in a bank lobby or coffee shop with
outlets… and a flushing toilet.
My neighborhood, Monday night
Power is restored to most of Manhattan now, meaning that my
office is up and running again, and my November
radio playlist is live and ready to stream. No, this playlist is not a
collection of storm themed songs, or songs about making do without water,
power, garbage collection, public transportation and our friend, the Internet.
This playlist doesn’t reflect that storm, or its aftermath—it’s pretty much
songs I added to my own pop category over the last 3 months, while I was on
tour. I also added songs to other categories—new Brazilian stuff, no surprise
there—but there isn’t enough accumulated there for a new playlist, not just
yet. Included are some songs from Rodriguez,
the subject of the recent documentary, “Searching For Sugarman”—worth
checking out—and Coin Locker Kid,
whom I’m sure is going to blow up in the press pretty soon.
The media’s attention this week has been divided between the
aftermath of storm and the presidential election. Many who were directly impacted by the storm feared they
might not make it to the polls. I tried to get dual citizenship in time for the
election, but it didn’t work out. I’m actually looking forward to taking the
test. I joked with friends that
the citizenship questions are, “Where is Disneyland?” or, “Who is Snookie?” You
know, things every American seems to be expected to know.
If, unlike me, you can vote, then please do so. I know, I
know, it’s a fucked-up system. We should have gotten rid if the Electoral
College system a long time ago, and the Super PACs and huge sums of money that
are used to manipulate our opinions (and influence our elected officials) are
simply obscene… but this is what we have right now and it’s better than what
exists in many places. At least, I think
it’s better than Russia, Ukraine and North Korea.
There’s a website called Vote-USA.org
that helps you sort out local candidates, what they stand for, and how to get
to your voting place.
I purchased Jay-Z's book, Decoded, via Amazon Kindle to read on my iPad. I was mostly interested by the mosaic/collage/multimedia aspect of the book—which turned out to be less impressive than advertised.
A couple of weeks ago, I updated my Kindle iPad app, along with a bunch of other apps. A few days later, I was discussing my upcoming music book with Adam, from McSweeney’s. I wanted to show him the way the video excerpts were inserted into Mr. Z's book.
The videos from Decoded are at the beginning of each chapter—a feature I like because they don't interrupt the flow of reading. In the videos, Jay-Z sits at a desk and tells us that rap is poetry. It's nice to see him step out from behind a persona, but as far as extra content goes, it is less than hoped for. How about a tour of Marcy Projects (a subject explored in some of the chapters)? With multimedia implemented throughout the book, I thought he could have done much more with it. Regardless, there is good stuff in the book—and it has a nice cover too!
Anyway, in my attempt to show Adam the videos, I discovered that they were all gone—in their place was a message that this content was not supported on my iPad.
It seems that, once again, Amazon has removed purchased material from our devices. I suspect Apple had a hand in this as well. Apple has consistently sabotaged their competitors’ apps and software that allow you to sync other devices with their own. Then, all of the sudden, apps that once did X and Y suddenly don’t perform those functions anymore. In most cases those apps were free—so it is hard to complain too much. Although, some of the free apps contained magazines, books and other content, like Decoded, that I purchased and though they may not have been very good, I paid for them and they were mine to keep! They came to my house and ripped pages out of my book!
I love reading on these devices, as I travel a lot when I tour. They allow me to easily have access to, and read the newspapers and magazines I subscribe to... but these "fuck you" gestures to us, the consumers, reminds me of the nonsense the record companies got up to—and a lot of good it did them!
I recently read an article about a group of Swedish neuroscientists: Björn van der Hoort, Arvid Guterstam and Professor H. Henrik Ehrsson, who conducted an experiment called, “Being Barbie.” Their findings explain how our perception of our bodies determines our perception of the world. Here’s a summary of what they did:
They built a rig that allows them to substitute other body images for your own. Their experiment was based on two models—a tiny sized Barbie (or Ken) and a 16-foot tall giant sized model. You lie on a table, wear a video helmet and when you look down at “yourself," you see not your own torso and legs but these models as if they were your own body. They encourage this belief by having a stick touch your leg while another stick touches your virtual body. You see the padded stick touch the Barbie body and at the same time you feel something—another padded stick—touching your own leg. This really locks the illusion into place.
So far, this might seem merely like a nifty parlor trick—albeit one I’d love to participate in. But there’s more to it than simply fooling the eye.
What the scientists point out is that their “trick” emphasizes that your perception of the whole world is affected by the size of your body image. If you perceive your body as Barbie size then the chair across the room now seems both giant and incredibly far away. That hand that touches your leg, in that instance, appears to be that of a giant. Like Alice after she drank from the vial, you believe that you have shrunken (or grown in the case of the giant body model they built).
What you see in the room doesn’t change. Your eyes, with their stereoscopic vision and depth perception, should tell you that the room and its furniture are normal. Wouldn’t one think that our eyes would at least tell us the “truth”—that the chair is still where it was and is a normal size chair? Wouldn’t you think that our eyes would counteract this trickery? That we’d instinctively realize that the doll body was a Barbie torso and that the chair is not miles away and giant? We assume that it is our eyes that transmit to us a kind of objective visual truth—but it seems these other factors can and do influence how we interpret what we see. They can override that “objective” truth. It seems that our “vision,” or at least how we interpret it, is quite malleable, and our body image has an unexpectedly huge influence on how we see the rest of the world. One can only imagine what an anorexic or bulimic young woman sees! Maybe these women would benefit, or at least get a measure or relief, from wearing the rig and experiencing their body image in the form of little Barbies?
This experiment is evidence that our vision, our image of the world around us, is even more subjective than we might have thought it was. What we believe is our “true” version of the world around us, a vision we assume matches that of everyone else, is merely the one (among many) that accommodates and is modified by our particular body image. Who knows how many other factors might similarly affect our image of the world?
It was then a small leap from discussing this experiment with some friends to a conversation regarding our current situation in which we are continually confronted with unreal body images in magazines and ads. Surgically enhanced, photoshopped and artificially tanned bodies are nothing new. For decades, Playboy centerfolds have been a mash up of drawings and cartoons aimed at men and photographs of what are purported to be real women. The visual clues that trigger a man’s lust, along with other factors that would make a woman desirable, seemed, in these images, fairly easy to exaggerate and emphasize. With digital and other image manipulation techniques, combined with surgical modification, we now have a whole race or super people parading in front of our eyeballs. Not just in centerfolds, but on TV, newspapers, tabloids, fashion magazines and yes… in real life. I recall sitting at on outdoor café in West LA marveling at the new heightened version of the female species that paraded in front of me. Now, the poor male who has evolved over millennia to respond instinctively to such clues is continually manipulated and completely helpless. For example, one might “know” that what they are looking at is photoshopped but, as in the Swedish experiment, one’s gut responds, as it will, despite any rational cognitive dissonance.
Likewise, women who view similar types of images—for example, the surgically and digitally enhanced images of celebrities and models—are also subject to succumbing to the power of these new bodies. Maybe not necessarily as objects of lust (as some men might instinctively to the centerfolds), but as body images they might emulate and aspire to. They too believe that what they are seeing is “real,” despite intellectually knowing that a picture has been doctored or an actress, reality star or celebrity wife surgically enhanced. These visual buttons and triggers that are being pressed are deeply ingrained in us as a species—mere rational thinking is powerless as a way of discounting them. Ordinary women (and men) naturally then hold up these doctored images of an ideal humanity as something to be strived for. Despite knowing better, they believe that this look can (and should) be achieved through a mostly simple and prolonged effort. Stick to one’s exercise regimen and maintain one’s diet and then, you too will look like the folks in the magazines. Sure, some surgery wouldn’t hurt either. This, we know, is a recipe for heartbreak… or even worse, a kind of insanity—as no amount of exercise and diet will ever make a human being look like the images being dangled in front of us.
We instinctively want to believe that a merit-based world exists—that with some hard work, focus, time, effort and perseverance, you too will be rewarded with the body you see on the billboard. The same also applies to our notions of economic well-being. As a result, you have Bill O’Reilly and Newt Gingrich (among many others) implying that poor people are poor simply because they aren’t trying hard enough (note the clever segue from Barbie to politics and economics). The implication is that poor people, or anyone who isn’t successful, just aren’t applying themselves or trying hard enough. Also, that less than fabulously attractive people similarly aren’t going to the gym enough. The corollary is that Bill and Newt are as wealthy as they are because they worked hard. This, excuse me, is bullshit. Donald Trump definitely received a few handouts from his father.
Sadly, this dissonance between what is possible image wise, and what is being aimed for by many normal women, is making many of them nutso. They exercise like crazy but still don’t quite match the girl on the red carpet. What gives? Must one need eat even less or switch to a new exercise regimen?
I was told recently that fashion designers and retailers now have to alter the cut of women’s garments to accommodate the extreme diets and surgically enhanced bodies that prevail among certain classes and in specific regions of the US. This swath of enhanced and altered bods runs from southern California across the southwest to Florida and Georgia. The silicone belt, one might say. Clothes cut to fit unenhanced, naturally evolved women’s bodies don’t fit these gals anymore… or at least they tend to look weird in them because they need clothing that accommodates a disproportionately bigger top and a smaller bottom.
Spent author and evolutionary psychologist, Geoffrey Miller suggests that these new body images are short-circuiting the criteria of evaluation for mate selection that has evolved over eons. Sexual selection is the other aspect of Darwin’s theory. Darwin proposes that how and with whom we mate with is at least equally as important to our “survival” and determines the course of evolution. For example, it used to be that a woman with perky breasts probably indicated that she is under a certain age. The same could be said for indicators such as lack of wrinkles, thin waists and non-grey hair. From a Darwinian point of view, these clues point to these women as prime candidates for mates—they appear both healthy and of prime child bearing and rearing age. According to Miller, these, along with similar markers, no longer can be guaranteed to signify what they have for eons. These days our rational sense might tell us that a woman or man is of a certain age, but now quite often the visual cues don’t match—there is a weird conflict between what we see and what we “know.” Which are we to believe? Will we be like the participants in the Being Barbie experiments and the men ogling centerfolds? Will our instincts override our “knowledge?” It seems they usually do. Advertisers and fashion magazines know this, and use it to their advantage.
One might read all this as a criticism (and probably some of it is) of these increasingly ubiquitous body modifications and enhancements. Although, one could equally say that if God didn’t want us to use the tools at our disposal—be they scalpels or pixels—then he wouldn’t have invented plastic surgery or Photoshop. Like “dressing to impress,” maybe these tools are just medical and digital extensions of our natural tendencies to put our best foot forward. In which case, we’ll collectively just have to adapt to this new wrinkle (sorry for the pun).
I was recently asked to do a conversation/talk with Janette Sadik-Kahn, our commissioner of transportation, at the AIA New York Center for Architecture Center (American Institute of Architects). Since I imagined there might be some architects or designers in the audience, I took some time to share some of my notes and photographs from my summer Latin American bikes and cities tour. I also took this opportunity to finally organize some of the notes I had taken and post them. So here it is, many months late.
Flashback to July 23, 2011—Oscar Diaz is my host here in Bogota. He worked closely with Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of the city (from 1998-2001 and currently running this year with the Green Party), on various projects to improve Bogota’s system of parks, bike paths, road construction, and mass transit system. He suggested we take a field trip so he could show some of the projects they had initiated. A few of us piled in a van in the morning and headed towards the outskirts of town, to the Kennedy District. In this district there are several small neighborhoods like El Tintal, Bellavista, and El Recreo. Bellavista is a small community that was formerly illegal. It was a place of dirt streets, no sewage, no water, or electricity. There was no property ownership or the various rights that go along with that. Much of that has changed, for the better, since that administration implemented a number of interrelated schemes.
There are lots of these illegal communities around Bogota and other cities here. Invasiones ilegales or piratas (illegal or pirate invasions) are what these communities are called when they begin forming—as they’re completely illegal. They’re called favelas in Brazil, townships in South Africa. They don’t hook up to city water, sewage, or electricity (not legally anyway), but there are still entrepreneurs who will develop real estate in these settlements, if you can call it that.
This is the way they used to look (Oscar took this in 1997):
One might call this old view of this community an example of crowd-sourced architecture—as there are no regulations or governmental guides. The patterns—streets and basic infrastructure—that comes into being could be considered to be emergent. But without sewage or water it’s pretty sad. Maybe that crowd principal can’t really be applied in all areas? Or maybe it needs a framework and set of principals and then it can form and grow around those?
This is the way it looks now (I took this July 2011):
We biked along these bike/ped paths that have been built here. We passed many improvised bike repair stations that have sprung up—a guy with a set of flat fix gear and other tools sets himself up as a pop-up business. Little shops have appeared on the ground floors of many of the buildings since the paths have been built. Needless to say in the intervening years this area got electricity and sewage, streetlights and schools.
Unfortunately, because of the current administration, the neighborhood has gone back to being a tough and dangerous area though it didn’t look it—I was advised to slip my big camera into my bag rather than letting it hang on my neck. Whenever I went off a little on my own, someone from the group would appear close to me, watching out. But now, at least there are possibilities for the residents—the local schools, the library and other centers provide educational services, and the TransMilenio buses that now reach here can connect these folks to employment in town—all of which didn't exist until the bus system (BRT) was created under Peñalosa’s administration.
The bike and pedestrian passages that former Mayor Peñalosa and Oscar instigated go through these communities and provide a network—they give the communities a street-type focus. Also, the “roads” serve as a link to other communities and to the TransMilenio—the rapid bus network that goes to, among other places, the center of the city.
The TransMilenio system, was begun some years ago as a cheaper and less socially and ecologically damaging alternative to the 600 million dollar highway scheme that was ready to go. The buses run really fast and, because you buy the tickets before getting on, there is no time wasted doing ticket business after you board the buses—which pull up to specially built stations along the existing highways as well as inside the city. They pull up, exchange passengers, and then zoom off. Only a masochist would decide to drive his or her own car to work... but there are plenty of those.
In the Americas terminal the station has indoor bike parking, as the inhabitants of that zone get around mainly by bike or by walking.
Would this kind of bus system work in some place like Atlanta, Georgia, where people spend hours and hours stuck in their cars getting from one side of the sprawl to the other?
It was pointed out that the improvements in Kennedy (schools and the bike/ped paths), and those in other barrios, were funded by the savings that accrued after the decision to build the TransMilenio system—a much more cost-effective solution than building the massive highway that had previously been proposed. There are 84km of exclusive corridors in the TransMilenio system. 1.7 million people are transported every day. 7 million people live in Bogota.
Many of the inhabitants of these squatter towns had never been outside of those places. These bike/ped "roads" coupled with the bus system allowed them to get out, get jobs in town, go to school, university etc. The storefront businesses that sprung up along the paths changed the communities in other ways, not only by creating jobs—people began to be more motivated, feel better about their situation, and about the future chances for their kids. My point to the architects was that here were fairly cheap and simple improvements that (coupled with some other changes described below) radically transformed people’s lives.
In order for these "townships" to receive basic city services—sewage, city water, electricity, schools, etc.—the settlements had to be legalized. Usually, previous city administrations would legalize about 12 of them a year but under Peñalosa and Oscar, they legalized 600. To kick the process off, the city would buy some of the vacant land and sell it to developers, as well as putting in some infrastructure such as the bike paths, pedestrian walkways, and public parks—all the stuff the “developers” in those zones would not ordinarily put in but made the areas attractive and more livable. The developers, seeing that clients were drawn to those amenities, began to advertise their future developments as having those features. Here is a developers’ billboard—their advertising features apartments with public spaces and green zones:
The public education in these areas was terrible. According to Oscar, that was partly due to the unions, who were mainly interested in holding onto their positions and increasing their benefits. The city took an initiative and began to build schools and then open them up to bids for private management at the same cost allocated per kid in a public school. In other words, if a kid were allocated $500 a year for a normal public school education, that was what the bidders would receive—but often under private management they could accomplish a lot more for the same amount of money.
It was a way of getting around the unions, and it was very successful. Some of the management of these schools was by Catholic schools that do not really aim to make a profit on their schools the way others might—breaking even is considered OK by the religious schools. The grade results and SAT scores are now equal those in the established private schools.
Critics say this system is privatizing education—a dangerous precedent, but Oscar counters that the parents don't have to pay tuition as they would in a real private school. It has brought a vast improvement in the quality of education to these poor neighborhoods. My friend Sally wrote me: “The education stuff sounds dangerously close to arguments made here for charter schools and the evils of the teachers' unions; I would say [to you] to be careful and be specific, but then again I am wary of such semi-private endeavors in education and you may not be...” I too am wary of the privatizing of education—it could turn into something driven by profits, like prisons are in the US. Can you imagine if a basic service like water were privatized—as is being discussed in some places? Scary. However, Oscar claims in this situation it worked because the education remains public for the children and the city pays the same per student. What changes is the administration, teachers and program—all managed by the private schools and universities that won the public bid.
Next we toured Biblioteca El Tintal—which is a library, auditorium, meeting rooms and cafeteria complex that was built on the site of former garbage dump. In the past, the trucks would go up the ramp and dump their loads, and the resulting heap was eventually carried off to the distant landfill. It was an unsightly dump, and certainly didn’t make the area attractive. These new library complexes—and quite a few were built based on this model—are usually located near a bus transit hub and surrounded by green. They were built by respected local architects and were the sort of eye-catching buildings any city would be happy to have downtown, but here, they were being built in the poorest neighborhoods. Needless to say, besides being a social, educational and cultural center, these places became sources of pride.
Here is an aerial view—the library complex has now been there for a while, and as a result the shanties that used to sprawl out in the area have been replaced by apartment blocks and row houses—all still linked by bike paths and pedestrian walkways:
(Image Source: Oscar Diaz)
Peñalosa fought to keep the former garbage truck ramp as a reminder of what it once was. When it was built there was not much around here—the illegal communities were springing up all around in a kind of squatter anarchy. The parents in those days would plop their kids in front of the TV. Now, the kids are going to schools and can use computers at this center—and teach their parents how to use computers as well.
Here’s an inside view:
Here is one of the other libraries in another outlying area:
This concept of the library as community hub, and as a transformative catalyst in a community was also picked up by the former Mayor of Medellín, Sergio Fajardo. His realized version was even more spectacular looking, though the effect was similar.
He brought in Giancarlo Mazzantito as an architect to build Biblioteca España on the edge of a hill, as part of a funky barrio, Santo Domingo, that had been dangerous and was considered a sort of dead-end for its citizens. The newly created plaza soon became a place for folks to meet, mingle and shop in the kiosks that sprung up—a focal point the barrio didn't previously have. The library became both a local and international architectural landmark, and is an example of both how architecture can transform a community, as well as being an example of serious architecture being introduced into a poor neighborhood, as opposed to where it usually is—in city centers where the well-to-do are entertained.
Fajardo did something similar to the BRT bus system connection as well—he linked this formerly isolated community to the main city by public transportation. Though in this case, it wasn’t possible to tag a bus line onto existing roads because the way up that hill is too twisty. So, instead, they made a gondola that takes folks to and from town.
Fajardo managed to transform Medellin from a place of squalor and despair into a liveable open city. He resorted to architects and urbanists, many of them Colombian (Rogelio Salmona, Giancarlo Mazzanti who designed the Parque Biblioteca Espana, Alejandro Echeverri who was responsible for the spatial development strategy, Sergio Gomez for the Botanial Garden), to realise “our most beautiful buildings in our poorest areas.”
His strategy was to begin in the most deprived areas, gain the trust of the poorest with the lowest chances of succeeding in life. Santo Domingo Savio which houses some 170,000 people was the starting point of the regeneration of Medellin from where it has spread elsewhere. Places for learning, schools, a library were deliberately designed as landmarks to signal a brighter future. Parks (of Wishes, of Bare Feet), internet facilities, an art gallery and a day care centre form part of the public realm open to all, together with new connections to the city at large. Converting dilapidated spaces into places where people can meet without fear and the very young population can play triggered improvements to the precarious abodes.
Openness and, most importantly, beauty was brought to these areas, for which the inhabitants started to feel civic pride.
The locals participated actively in these transformations. Youngsters and the unemployed were given the opportunity to learn building trades. Not only were they able to improve their own abodes, but their skills provided them with jobs and a new lifestyle.
Oscar and I had lunch with Alexandra Rojas, former Deputy Secretary of Finance, who is involved in a program of national accident prevention. She was also involved in a big campaign (Fondo de Prevención Vial—FPV) to reduce road, pedestrian, bike and car accidents. She said that the prevailing attitude is that accidents are destiny—that they come upon us at random and unexpectedly—black swan events that we can’t predict. There is a feeling that you, therefore, can’t do anything about them. Their program, fronted by a very well known TV presenter, was called Epidemic of Excuses. Interesting that when they tested they found that this presenter had a credibility rating of 80%—so she was perfect for getting this difficult message across.
Rojas says all studies show the opposite to the prevailing perception of accidents as random or fate—it showed that traffic accidents, and especially those involving pedestrians, are indeed mostly avoidable, and therefore preventable. However, to prevent them, there would need to be some compromises for drivers such as driving slower (which may mean more traffic jams, though), along with additional crossing stations, more lights, etc. The number of lives that would be saved is not random—it’s completely predictable. Janette Sadik-Khan is figuring out how to do a similar program here in NY to get drivers to slow down. In Colombia, as in the US, it’s an uphill battle. In Colombia, 80% of the population does not have cars, but, as in the US, most of the infrastructure budget goes to accommodate the other 20% who do own cars. As Peñalosa and others have pointed out, these fiscal policies are counter democratic—they privilege a minority, a wealthy minority, of course, over the bulk of citizens. It would be as if sections of public parks were lopped off to create helipads for wealthy businessmen, or as if hire cars were allowed to stop and park wherever they wish. As in many parts of the U.S., lots of roads in Colombia have no place for pedestrians—there is no sidewalk. If you don’t have a car, tough luck. When the largest part of a nations funds go to accommodate a small, wealthy portion of citizens (the drivers, in the case of Columbia), democracy and the rights of the citizens are being subverted in the most profound way—at the level of the pocketbook.
Back in the U.S.A.
In a similar effort to those that Peñalosa, Salas, and Fajardo have done, an organization named Studio H has been active in North Carolina. I read a piece the other day that Alice Rawsthorn wrote for the NY Times in which the organizers were quoted as saying that, similar to Fajardo’s scheme, they focused on young folks becoming involved in the building effort. Many of these folks were around 17 years old and had never made anything in their lives—never held a hammer or sawed wood. So this was a big step that not all of them wanted to take, but for those who did their sense of self was radically changed.
Pretty amazing! Not only is she not a big pop artist, she's Afro-Peruvian—so even further out of the mainstream. When Luaka Bop began putting out her records, she was pretty much unknown, even in Peru.
SINGER/SONGWRITER DAVID BYRNE AND INDEX MUSIC INC. RESOLVE LAWSUIT AGAINST CHARLIE CRIST, CHARLIE CRIST FOR UNITED STATES SENATE, THE STEVENS AND SCHRIEFER GROUP LTD., AND RED OCTOBER PRODUCTIONS, INC.
TAMPA, FL. – April 11, 2011 – Singer/songwriter David Byrne and Index Music Inc. have resolved their lawsuit against former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, Charlie Crist for United States Senate, The Stevens and Schriefer Group, Ltd., and Red October Productions, Inc. The lawsuit arose from a web campaign video made by Stevens and Schriefer Group Ltd. And Red October Productions, Inc., which Charlie Crist used in his primary campaign for United States Senate, that incorporated portions of the song Road to Nowhere, a song written by Mr. Byrne and recorded by Mr. Byrne and his band Talking Heads. The lawsuit, filed on May 24, 2010 in the United States District Court in Tampa, alleged that this use of Road to Nowhere required licenses which were not obtained. The financial terms of the settlement are confidential.
Former Florida Governor Charlie Christ, Charlie Crist for United States Senate, The Stevens and Schriefer Group Ltd., and Red October Productions, Inc. apologize that a portion of David Byrne’s song and the recording of Road to Nowhere was used without permission. Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, Charlie Crist for United States Senate, The Stevens and Schriefer Group Ltd., and Red October Productions, Inc. do not support or condone any actions taken by anyone involved in the 2010 election campaign for United States Senate that were inconsistent with artists’ rights of the various legal protections afforded to intellectual property.
The Stevens and Schriefer Group Ltd. And Red October Productions, Inc.:
Michael P. Matthews
Foley & Lardner LLP
100 North Tampa Street, Suite 2700
Tampa, FL 33601-3391
Phone: (813) 225-4131
Here are statements in addition to the official press release:
Following the case settlement, Byrne issued this statement: “I was shocked to discover, while working out our settlement, that the use of songs for political ads is pretty rampant. It turns out I am one of the few artists who has the bucks and cojones to challenge such usage- I'm feeling very manly after my trip to Tampa! Other artists may actually have the anger but not want to take the time and risk the legal bills. I am lucky that I can do that. Anyway, my hope is that by standing up to this practice maybe it can be made to be a less common option, or better yet an option that is never taken in the future.”
Lawrence Iser, of Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert LLP, represented Byrne in the case. “This settlement again confirms that the U.S. Copyright and Trademark laws apply to politicians and their advertising agencies, just like everyone else,” said Iser. “If a politician wants to use a popular song to generate interest and excitement or popular appeal, he or she must obtain a license to use the song. There is no difference between selling cars or toothpaste and selling a political candidate, and the law doesn't provide a free pass to persons running for office. We are hopeful that given the recent examples of the cases filed by Jackson Browne, Don Henley, and now David Byrne, politicians will obtain all necessary licenses before doing this in the next election cycle.”
It was sort of a coincidence. I’d been reviewing the CDs I picked up on my trip to Japan a few months ago, and then I sat in with If By Yes as part of the Japan music festival here in NY last week. Then the earthquake and tsunami and the nuclear mess all hit—all of which made me want to get this Japanese playlist together faster than I normally would have. Thoughts of Japanese friends, culture and countryside welled up, and this music became a kind of soundtrack to my thoughts and feelings.
This music arrived largely through friends. Thanks to Yusuke, and all the folks at Vacant Gallery in Tokyo, who invited their musical friends round—who tipped me to a lot of new stuff I didn’t know about. Thanks Deerhoof for arranging that Ichi, from Nagoya, perform here at LPR. (One of the most pleasantly surprised NY audience reactions I’ve seen since Tune Yards opened for Dirty Projectors!) Thanks Diego Cortez for the Oorutaichi CD. Thanks Hideaki Matsuura for the tip about Soothe.
Can we help?
Traditionally, the Japanese have issues with charity. They see themselves as proudly self-reliant, and offers of aid after the Kobe earthquake were initially refused. However, times change, and maybe now there is an understanding that offers of help are as much a gesture of solidarity and mutual feeling as they are about money. The urge to reach out is as much about our own feelings as it is about Japanese needs. For folks outside Japan, it stems from an altruistic urge to show some connection and a human bond in a time of crisis. To say “you are not alone.”
Here are two ways to donate. Yuka Honda sent a link to a fund set up by Japan Society here in NY who are donating 100% of the donations that get sent (they’re even swallowing their administrative fees): http://www.japansociety.org/earthquake
