Is Innovation Fair? Andrew Keen Says No
Andrew Keen is no stranger to controversy. He has irritated bloggers by equating Web 2.0 with communism and enraged citizen journalists with his best selling book, Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture. Naturally when I saw Keen's core conversation "Is Innovation Fair?" on the SXSW program, I knew it would incite lively discussion.
SXSW and the term "read-write web" are perhaps the antithesis of what Keen has become known for. While we as a publication (and often as a community) celebrate the participatory culture of Web 2.0, Keen sees the rise of amateur publishers as the fetishism of change-based culture and the breakdown of centralized moral authority. In less diplomatic circles, he's accused of being an elitist. When an intimate 40 person setting of bloggers like Stealthmode Partners' Francine Hardaway and legendary futurist Bruce Sterling failed to erupt into an angry mob, I was surprised.
In addressing the question "Is Innovation Fair?" Keen maintains that there is no definitive answer. He says, "If you asked a peasant whether innovation was fair during the industrial revolution, he'd answer no. But history is written by innovators."
Keen explains that the voices that have legitimized change from the industrial revolution to the late 60's, have been those of the cultural elite. Professional poets, musicians, academics and writers have always had a place in creating the histories surrounding major paradigm shifts. Nevertheless, as the digital revolution rapidly destroys the barriers to creating historical narratives, a new elitism has emerged in the form of a-list bloggers, social media experts and web developers.
While digital utopians generally see technological innovations and social media as vehicles for democracy and positive solutions, Keen argues that the proponents of innovation tend to forget the victims of change.
"Innovation doesn't lead to justice and fairness. I'd argue there is a more dramatic inequality now then there ever was during the industrial revolution. We have fetishized change, but we are unfettered. If anything, the new media is less transparent and less accountable...I don't have a problem with Twitter or new media, my problem is that digital utopians have dressed up their ideology to sound like democracy...Google has become the master of seeming like an altruistic and public company and yet laughing all the way to the bank."
Keen argues that because established elites are being displaced by the digerati, the web ecosystem is suffering from a crisis in authority. He believes that a lack of thoughtful skepticism and the overwhelming emphasis on real-time sound bites rather than academic treatise is leading to the vast majority of netizens consuming only mulched versions of the truth.
Says Keen, "You can't get nuggets of truth in 30 seconds on Twitter...Skepticism requires deep thinking. We have an increasing nihilism when it comes to traditional authority and yet few of the new authorities are doing the reading or groundwork. ...When we simply assume that all traditional structures are wrong, we risk the populism of a Sarah Palin..."
As a blog with an audience of entrepreneurs, self-publishers and technologists, we know Keen won't hold you back from innovating. But he may make you question whether or not you have enough information to accurately assess your life decisions. Love him or loathe him, let us know your thoughts about Keen's assertions in the comments below.
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I love a good agitator and lone wolf like Keen.
We do need to question much of what we do online, and we need to do it offline, while walking in the woods or along the beach.
the main, wrong, assumption is that the ecosystem we are moving in is exclusively bottom up.
if you have ever run a crowdsourcing process you know that bottom up is never enough to get you to the final end goal. You always need a hybrid process that brings together the richness of the bottom up approach and the strategic direction of top down thinking. You need to bring together group-thinking and individual thinking.
And the whole ecosystem is organically going in that direction anyway. Think of how the web is rebuilding elites and various circles of influence like in real-life instead of being a great leveler where every opinion has the same weight. We are not facing a crisis of authority but the rise of a new type of authority which is "emergent" rather than "created".
Another clear, basic example? the panel picker model of sxswi... anyway, I've put together some of these views in a talk about open innovation at open hardware conference in London, here http://www.facegroup.co.uk/an-hybrid-model-for-open-innovation
Francesco, on an operational level I agree with your argument about hybrid authorities. At the same time, I do wonder regularly whether influencers (bottom up or top down) really digest information and take advantage of their privilege to shape society. Our feeds and streams can help us consume and build products, (and also create more feeds and streams) , but I do feel like the echo chamber is clouding our perception of what it means to actually sit down and think about the implications. Although the technologies are faster, our brains are the same old brains. Are we reserving enough time to simply process what we're consuming?
Controversy is a strategic positioning and it sure helps get noticed amongst the media landscape.
Now beyond the evidence, Keen is totally right to question innovation at all costs and its benefits spilling on every body. Farmers and workers have paid a heavy toll during the Industrial Revolution. On the other hand mass consumption was at this cost. Unfortunately I'd say there are always winners and loser in this race and not necessarily for the better. Still progress is not to be condemned, the question is how it is managed.
Now regarding the elites. Every system produces elites and the Interweb is no exception, whatever its version. RRW, TC, Mashable, not withstanding many consultants are expressing views that are followed by the so called "masses", so they are elites by the influence they exert on their readers.
What has changed is that more and more people have a say on the conventional wisdom. This has good and bad outcome. Good because contributions help build stronger results that could not have been achieved by a single brain, thanks to collective intelligence defined by Pierre Levy. And bad, because ignorance, bigotry and conspiracy theory have unfortunately a too large audience.
But maybe we are not talking about the same person ;)
What's wrong with the populism of Sara Palin?
Only a pseudo-intellectual would make that claim without substantiating it.
"Look at me, I'm saying something controversial. I'm an elitist!"
A true elitist knows the value of lies and deception.
try harder next time.
Nice piece, Dana. The reason I don't erupt when I hear Andrew is that I know he has a really good liberal arts education and a context for what he says so when I disagree with him, I'm having an intelligent discussion with a worthy adversary. Wish some of my political discussions were as civil.
I am not sure I am an influencer myself, but I know many of them well, and they work hard to digest information and not just utter pronouncements. Think about Doc Searls, Steve Gillmor, Dave Winer, Robert Scoble -- I think they are engrossed in the implications of what technology implies. After the panel in which I saw you, I went to Beyond Algorithms, in which the discussion was about philosophies of retrieving and presenting information. Very thoughtful people working in that arena.
And the Cluetrain Manifesto wasn't a cry for change without implications -- it was an observation of the implications of change.
And the implications of change are, indeed, enormous. In fact, I'm impressed that you got your post up so quickly:-) I'm still thinking.
Andrew is right when he says 30 seconds on twitter won't reveal nuggets of truth, but that doesn't make it worthless. Many times that 30 seconds will spark a thinker to look deeper and harder at something, or the skeptic to pull back and ask where the emperor's clothes are.
I learned a long time ago to use what Andrew says as a barometer for my own skepticism. He's quite handy for that, since I can count on disagreeing with the surface points he makes, while finding some common ground on the deeper foundations.
We can no longer ask peasants if innovation is fair because there are so few of them around, at least in societies where innovation has taken hold. We can ask their heirs if innovation has improved their lives and there would be no doubt that it had.
There is also no doubt about the elite nature of modern society, where in the USA for example ten percent of the people hold 90% of the wealth, and the US congress has just legislated that corporations have the same rights as individuals and so can make campaign contributions, thereby further tipping the balance over to the deeply ingrained democratic principle of one dollar one vote. In the land where health insurance supports shareholders at the clear expense of patients, who are often left to get over it and die on loopholes and technicalities, there have even been spoof election campaigns by satirists posing as corporations seeking office, that would seem to be the next step, how could any individual raise enough money to mount a campaign against a corporation seeking a senate seat (as happens now, though up to now only an individual could actually hold that seat)?
The Internet is what counteracts this existing elitism, gives voice to People Without Dollars. If a new elite is emerging thanks to a shifting power balance, there may be some populism along the lines of Sara Palin, but hang on, she's a populist in the present system! Andrew Keen does make a cogent argument that we should pause and consider what we are doing, but if this debate had happened ten years earlier he'd be warning us off Y2K.
Mr Keen's comments are provocative. I'll respond to a couple of points:
Innovation is most certainly unfair, but it has to be. If you use the analogy of the donut (or doughnut for the "literate" amongst us), justice is about how one divides the donut, while innovation is about how one increases the size of the donut. Life tells us that increasing the size of the donut will probably make its division unfair and unjust. But that should not worry us because it creates, on average, more for everybody.
You write, "Keen argues that because established elites are being displaced by the digerati, the web ecosystem is suffering from a crisis in authority". Mr Keen is also correct here, because there are so many authorities to choose from. The statement seems to contain a tacit implication that this is a bad thing. I would argue that it is not. Although a single authority is a nice thing that gives many comfort and hope, authority is only good if it is correct, reasonable, and if the power of having authority is not abused.
We have seen in past times how various people and authorities (e.g. Catholic Church in dark ages, IBM in the 1960s & 1970s, Jim Jones, Darth Vader...) have used the monopoly they had as an authority to do evil and not good. Having a crisis in authority means that there is some competition amongst people and organizations that wield the power of authority. This is a good thing because it keeps authorities honest and keeps people aware when authority is being abused.
In another section he argues in favour of the academic treatise instead of the "mulched versions of truth". Academic treatises are necessary when there is a monopoly of authority. Treatises have to thoughtfully consider all sides of a problem before drawing conclusions. However, when there is competition for authority, a bunch of "mulched versions of the truth", each from a competing source of authority on a topic, will serve the same purpose as an academic treatise. i.e. You will see many sides of an argument before you come to a conclusion.
Mr Keen's overall lament is the same one made by aging leaders on the verge of retirement on the state of society and how it is going to hell in a handbasket because the premises of authority, which underpinned their idealized generation, are breaking down. This lament is made by retiring leaders of every generation.
Boo hoo.
In many cases innovation is just an evolution.
The main requirement is the availability of a new technology at affordable prices that gives birth to game changers. Many game changers will put products and services on the market and only a few will succeed.
The success is not always due to offering the better solution but the marketing, sales, the market timing and the market opportunity play a big role.
Sounds like Keen and Mark Bauerlein author of 'The Dumbest Generation' share a lot in common. I've heard the term 'the Faux Transparency of the 2.0' used as well. What seems democratic, often is just shrouded in democracy, but centralized like never before in many cases.
It's VERY interesting. I'm 31 years old, right on that Gen X Gen Y cusp and I struggle with my want to love and embrace SM and my understanding that true authorities, rooted in education of history/experience (whatever the topic) are being diminished. Liberal 'Radicals' of the 60's read and re-read the Capitalistic mantras of the day as 'supply siders' read and re-read Marx. Why? They needed to deeply understand the counter-culture to effectively debate against it. Now, the counter-culture (to whatever YOUR personal 'culture' is) is NEVER let in, NEVER read, wholly ignored and that is dangerous.
College professors are more accessible than ever, yet fewer and fewer students opt to strike up meaningful conversations with their 'superiors'. The literal world wide web is at our fingertips at EVERY moment. This great wave of education and rise of freedoms is imminent right? Well, it seems we all get the EXACT data we want, sent directly to us and our exposure to anything else outside our customized comfort zone is easily shut out and ignored.
It's interesting and should be noted that what was meant to be the greatest leveler ever concocted has instead (in many billions of people), created mini-silos of ever selected info. It's great for filtering, finding exactly what you intended on finding, but it's pretty rotten for actually expanding your horizons beyond your laptop or those who think and feel exactly as you already do.
There is a good deal of truth in Keen's presentation that I would agree with. However, I don't think we are necessarily trading considered reporting of news, so much, with the new online model, as we are trading one set of problems for another.
The still current construct of a centralized news agency doling out the news daily leaves much to be desired in its frailties (eg: what 'it' considers "news" (worthy of reporting), and... the ever-present-but-vehemently-denied idealogical slant to reporting), are but two glaring examples of this construct.
The many splendor-ed and splintered "amateur" beast that is the web's 'social' approach to news is fraught with problems too. What it makes up for in sheer variety and democratization of the news, it miserably fails in accountability and culpability. Reputations can be made and conversely, destroyed in milliseconds, in an unfettered web.
If fair is taken to only mean "having or exhibiting a disposition that is free of favoritism or bias," or "just to all parties," then hell no, innovation isn't fair.
But if fair is taken to also mean "being in accordance with relative merit or significance," then hell yes, innovation is fair.
You might as well ask, "Is change fair?"
Then again, the question might also be, (not "Is innovation fair?" -- or, nod to Greg -- "Is change fair?") but "Is anything in the world fair? The universe creates and destroys suns and planets; earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tidal waves, destroy cities; nature has always been unfair.
But we are human, and the real question is perhaps "Is it moral?" If what we seek as human beings is a truly moral world, then the issues concerning technology and its uses ought to be judged on the degree of morality they display.
The uses of technology are huge and varied -- one might use a special digital device to "thumb" open one's car, but to use it to steal someone else's car would be wrong. Using a computer to send your professor an essay required for an online class would be great, but using it to hack into the school's computers to change grades (as was recently done) is reprehensible. Using the computer to upload your own, original songs on your own personal website is excellent; using it to violate someone's copyrighted work is piracy (read "theft").
In some respects I agree with Keen. Innovation does not always lead to justice and fairness - but is it obliged to do so? Most young people cannot remember a time without access to the Internet and mobile communications and they have become accustomed to engaging via increasingly abbreviated messages and symbology.
It doesn't mean that intellectual thought and considered analysis is dead however. Academic literature continues to be published, books written and documentaries aired on public broadcast channels. But of course those media appeal only to a relatively small sector of society.
Thirty years ago instead of Facebook and online games it was Looney Tunes cartoons and pen-pals by snail mail. Same audience, different technology. As a parent of a ten year old, I try to ensure that my son has a balance. He knows about issues around online privacy, still enjoys visiting the museum and can identify and locate a book in our local library when he needs to research a homework topic.
The rise of the new digital elite does not necessarily diminish the fundamental basis of knowledge and the desire to participate in the real world.
Keen has uttered my thoughts on the subject. One thing I might add, a shaving of the word "amateur." The word means the [for] love of, which is great. The problem, though, is the desperate need of the musically untrained and culturally unfiltered mobbing the net for fame at the lowest price. Denoting them amateurs is, therefore, off the mark. They are mobster-artists.
The mob is working now, but eventually will tire. Let me hope that that will occur in my family's lifetime.