Geert Lovink, free culture, and the threat of amateurisation

Marc Garrett of Furtherfield.org comments (originally in the netbehaviour mailing list) on our references to Geert Lovink’s critique of free culture:

“Lovink’s relationship with ‘free culture’ comes from a micro perspective, influenced by connections built around an active respect for the idea, and possibly a personal reliance on particular structures and frameworks, dedicated in supporting forms of ‘official’ authority. This creates a less socially grounded and intuitive understanding of why people are engaged in such things.

Things cannot always be defined through theory or through ‘officially’ culturalized platforms and condoned hierarchies alone. To be truly engaged, one has to cross over into different elements of being, connecting and touching – not necessarily because it’s part of one’s practice, but because it relates to everyday life and relational experiences as well. Thankfully, such things can’t be (wholly) measured, packaged made into chewable concepts so easily. Wherever we happen to stand in the scheme of things, we only possess part of the picture, not the whole thing.

Yet what this situation communicates to me is, that there those who feel they know or have a particular perspective of the bigger picture because of their positions in relation to their privilege, rather than their actual engagement in a field such as free culture. And what theorists and officially known individuals want, really does not matter – it’s what people want that matters precisely because they are the users the community.

“At the moment the amateurs are blocking the careers of entire generations of young professionals. With this the rich knowledge of professions is threatened to disappear (for instance those doing investigative journalism). We have to stop this talent drain and not create economies that have to live off charity. Free networks should take themselves more serious. The first step to get there should be to critically investigate the ‘ideology of the free’. New forms of production, as you call it, cost money. We need to circulate money so that it can flow into those circles that have taken up the task to seriously construct tomorrow’s tools.” (http://www.digicult.it/digimag/article.asp?id=1148)”

I disagree with the idea that amateurs are the enemy. Free culture is dictated and driven by many types of amateurs (people) and their very human behaviours; their input and influences matter just as much as anyone else’s. This may trouble those who wish to control it. Regarding the use of the term Professional “…a person who has obtained a degree in a professional field. The term professional is used more generally to denote a white collar working person, or a person who performs commercially in a field typically reserved for hobbyists or amateurs.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional) Since the Internet much has changed, and recognition of a new type or class of individual has arrived. What we once knew as ‘professional’ has moved and expanded away from a singular perspective, into a more fluid and less static form or process. This means that new types of people can take control of culture in ways which incorporate in their behaviours, paradigms that recreate social contexts according to their actions, via networked connectivities and infiltration of older orders. This shift is not always positive, but it is also not always bad. It is a reassembling of different infrastructures and free culture has played a large part in creating this change. Perhaps we need alternative ways of appreciating this shift, with new definitions that work to actively accept this new reality; a term less defined from an absolutist vision to a realisation that works to include different levels of understanding beyond mechanistic and top-down positioning. A more lateral view, to allow voices of others who have not chosen to fit into the more traditional role of ‘professional’, yet at the same time offer just as much a valid input.

It is not honourable or progressive (or even humane) to ‘only’ accept those who have conformed to a particular process and function of being, when their skills are just as imaginative and effective culturally. Many of these so called amateurs possess critical skills and awareness of the world and have theories, which are ‘as’ relevant as those who hold official status. If a true representation of this fact is not considered or not allowed to breath freely, then we need to accept and know that such stances declare a political reasoning and a desire for a more conservative world, where division is the method of control to maintain social order so to keep these ‘upstarts’ in their place, as an ‘unprofessional’ and unworthy class.

The other thing is that, critical engagement does not always have to be defined through specific groups of people. Creating a professional class may sound like a pretty decent idea to some, but for something to really have social significance and a cultural life, it needs to be allowed to live beyond a hermetically sealed vacuum.

Having said all this, I feel that is Geert as an individual does propose some interesting arguments. What he proposes may not necessarily sit right, but they address important questions around how and why things ‘should’ always be free. If we want something to be free, perhaps the motives and ideas need to be explored more regularly or more deeply, rather than everyone just accepting and adopting the idea of it as ‘a be all and end all’. It’s a bit like accepting democracy without knowing why its there in the first place – perhaps we just need to remind ourselves why we have it.”

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