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Commementary by:
Steve Fuller
University of Durham
mailto:Steve.Fuller@durham.ac.uk
The electronic medium is undoubtedly revolutionizing academic
communication. But it is still unclear who will benefit in the long
term by this revolution. Since so much is up for grabs at this point, a
clear sense of where we have come from is needed to make sense of where
we might be going. To his credit, Stevan Harnad offers such an account,
the "Faustian bargain", which is very much part of the folklore of
academic life. Its image of the profit-driven publisher provides a
convenient scapegoat and remedy for academics who feel that they never
quite get their message across to all who could potentially benefit
from it. Unfortunately, like all such self-serving stories, its grain
of truth is buried under a mountain of mystification.
First, Harnad's position needs a name, one that does justice to its
historical roots: Cyberplatonism. The Platonist's Holy Grail is the
frictionless medium of thought that can transcend time and space to get
at The Truth. The Cyberplatonist believes he or she has found the Grail
in the Internet. However, the Achilles Heel of all forms of Platonism
is an obliviousness to the material conditions of thought.
Academics are not the only people who have had an interest in fostering
academic communication. The Internet itself arose from Cold War
concerns about America's ability to respond to a nuclear first strike.
To beef up its communication networks, the US Department
of Defence drew upon some work then being done at MIT on
resource-sharing between computers. From this came the
idea of collaboration among different computer user
communities. The prototype of the Internet, ARPANET, was
thus launched in 1969 to connect Defence Department
researchers working all across America.
Hardly auspicious beginnings for the esoteric pursuits of
Cyberplatonism. However, this history highlights the basic point that
if there is, indeed, a "Faustian bargain" in the life of the mind, it
is the one that academics strike with their sponsors that buys them the
leisure to collectively pursue their studies.
A quarter century ago, the Internet's capacity to transform academic
work was seen to be about as great as the telephone's, which is to say,
not very great. However, over time professors and students alike have
taken full advantage of this free facility, so that the Internet is on
the verge of becoming the umbilical cord of academic life. Many know
first hand that academic productivity is definitely enhanced by the new
regime. What better time, then, to privatise the entire Internet,
putting its virtual real estate on the market to the highest bidder
among those -- including publishers -- who have an interest in
promoting academic work! As the Internet evolves from a mere
convenience to an outright necessity, it invites thoughts about how
much academics - - or their sponsors -- would be willing to pay to
continue feeding their technological fix.
The more that Harnad insists on the centrality of electropublication to
future academic productivity, the more he unwittingly opens the door to
what I have called the "commodification of knowledge". My own best
guess is that governments will welcome the privatisation of knowledge
production as a way of quickly relieving their overburdened budgets. In
that case, academics should start worrying more about how intellectual
property law might apply to forms of knowledge traditionally regarded
as "public goods".
Harnad's strategy of locating a medium beyond the reach of economic
considerations is no more than a temporary solution, one akin to having
everyone who lives in a high-rent district move to a less expensive
neighbourhood. It will not be long before the latter locale acquires
the property values of the former. The metaphor is telling. Harnad
gives the impression that paper-based production costs provide the main
economic barrier to free inquiry, when in fact the cost of renting
channels and licencing broadcasters may pose even greater barriers in
the long term. In other words, Harnad may be naive in assuming that the
Internet is more like a publication without paper than, say, a
television with text.
But let us say, for the sake of argument, that the material conditions
for realizing Harnad's utopia remain intact. Wherein lies our failure
to realize it? Is it fair to portray publishers as Mephistophelean
agents in a Faustian bargain with academics? No, I am afraid that
demons have always possessed Faust's soul. However, Faust has developed
some rather good defence mechanisms for not recognizing them. Once
again, a little history goes a long way.
To begin with, it is misleading to suggest, as Harnad does, that
authors -- even esoteric ones -- and publishers have had opposed
interests throughout the Gutenberg Era. Only in the late 18th century
do "authors" come to be regarded as more than just the first stage of
the book production process. After chronic book piracy forced
publishers to cut authors" commissions and, in some cases, replace them
with cheaper scribes, authors retaliated by claiming a special legal
status for the kind of work they do that transcends the medium in which
they do it: The print may belong to the publisher, but the words are
the author's own. A cynic could say that modern copyright laws were
thus designed to ensure against low demand by upgrading the quality of
what the author supplies. A more positive gloss was the Romantic image
of the "misunderstood genius" whose works appeal only to an esoteric
clique. Though it first applied to poets, philosophers and scientists
soon adopted this image as their own.
Now consider the 'self-organizing" form of academic life known as "peer
review". It was designed, not to allow academics to hide from their
sponsors in esoteric splendour, but to dictate the terms on which
academics accounted for their use of their sponsors" resources. When
the first scientific journals were founded in 17th century Britain and
France, editors were cast in the role of trusted correspondents with
the leading scientific minds, whose letters they would edit for
gratuitous metaphysical jargon and personal nastiness. Thus scientific
writing was first standardized. Eventually the single correspondent was
replaced by the editorial board and more specialized referees.
While standardization is often said to be a prerequisite for genuine
knowledge growth, a more pressing historical reason for disciplining
scientific communication was to ensure that the scientists"
aristocratic patrons were not unnecessarily confused or offended. The
aristocrats supported scientific societies in order to be amused,
edified and, in some cases, technically empowered. Peer review
instituted the decorum needed to persuade patrons that their money was
well spent.
In these developments, publishers have often functioned as correctives
to the pursuit of esoteric inquiries fostered by peer review. They
continue to encourage academics to write books that are suitable for
either students or general audiences. Of course, publishers have also
expedited the specialization of academic journals. But that would not
have become such an attractive financial proposition, had academics not
been allowed to set their own paths of inquiries, and hence settle into
ever narrower domains whose state-of-the-art is defined by one or two
journals. Once academic specialists agree that a certain journal is
"essential reading" for their field, they deliver a captive audience to
publishers that is too good to resist.
The result has been to place at risk the future of the most of the
creative aspect of publishing: Marketing. Academics tend to see
publishing as little more than a matter of editing manuscripts and
printing books and journals. Such dualistic thinking breeds the kind of
"Us versus Them" rhetoric with which Harnad discusses publishers.
However, in their search for new markets, publishers have been leaders
in giving voice to groups whose interests cut against those of the
established academic fiefdoms. Prominent recent examples include
women's studies and cultural studies, two fields that received
considerable attention from publishers before receiving formal academic
recognition.
Here it is worth recalling that not all academic fields are constituted
in the same way. Sociologically speaking, there is little reason to
think that the success of journals in fields as different as high-
energy physics and Harnad's domain of cognitive science can be
explained in terms of their common characteristics. Whereas high-energy
physics is probably the most intellectually focussed and socially
stratified specialty in science today, cognitive science is a very
active, but relatively amorphous, interdisciplinary field. The elites
in high-energy physics coordinate their activities to dictate to the
rest of the field, and sometimes to the entire physics community. By
contrast, the success of Behavior and Brain Sciences may be better
explained in terms of the bandwagon effect caused by several elite
cognitive scientists from different parts of the field publishing early
in the journal's history.
If one wanted to take Cyberplatonism deadly seriously, then not only
should paper publishing go by the wayside, but also the whole idea of
seeking personal credit for as many articles as possible in
peer-reviewed journals. This idea is not intrinsic to pure inquiry, but
the result of academics having to account for their activities in a
competitive environment involving the allocation of scarce resources.
The aristocratic patrons may be gone, but, as Harnad himself admits,
the Research Assessment Exercise is just around the corner.
Who, then, will most likely benefit from Harnad's brand of
Cyberplatonism? If we grant Harnad's (big) assumption that the future
owners of Internet will subsidize all of today's networkers, the answer
seems to be the very same people who current thrive in print. Consider
Harnad's call for everyone to post their articles on the World Wide
Web. "Knowbots" notwithstanding, this would only strengthen the
system's elitist tendencies, which sociologist Robert Merton has
euphemistically dubbed, "the principle of cumulative advantage". Faced
with a plethora of titles on a common topic, an author's name
recognition will count more than ever. The sheer availability of a work
by no means guarantees that it will get into the hands of the people
who could most benefit from it. Here marketing can make all the
difference, thus providing a fresh challenge for the 21st century
publisher.
Nowadays, a relatively democratic cross-section of the academic
community can be found on the "listservs" and "usenets" that populate
the Internet. Teachers, administrators, and students do not merely
consume the knowledge that cutting-edge researchers generously deposit
on the World Wide Web. They are themselves knowledge producers, and
often incisive critics of what passes for quality in the print and
electronic media. The result is a multiple-registered, rough-and-tumble
atmosphere that has put off some elite inquirers but has empowered many
more. Admittedly, women and minorities remain underrepresented, but
cyber-activists like Sadie Plant are endeavouring to change that.
Cyberplatonists like Harnad tend to downplay the heterogeneity of the
Internet, perhaps hoping that it will eventually come under the
decorous thumb of peer review. However, if we took Plato's Socratic
dialogues as a model for "free inquiry", anyone would be allowed to
participate in any line of thought wherever it may lead. A discrete
publication would result, if at all, only after considerable
discussion, by which time it would be difficult to identify who
deserves credit for which idea. Crackpots and ignoramuses -- assuming
we know who they are -- would be given their say, but then one would do
the obvious: refute, ignore, or delete. The filtered world of anonymous
refereeing would thus dissolve into open commentary.
I do not mean to suggest that this radical vision is entirely
realizable, even in these low cost days of electronic communication.
But elements of the vision are worth pursuing. Tardy referees are not
the worst problem facing journal editors today. More troubling is that
authors read referees" reports pretty much as editors do, namely, as a
red or green signal for publication. Harnad's enthusiasm for quick
turnaround times from acceptance to publication only nurtures this
mentality. However, the reports may wind up playing little or no role
in shaping an author's thought, at least as long as there are other
journals to which the author can submit a rejected piece with minimum
alterations. No wonder referees find theirs to be a thankless lot.
The source of the problem is simply that authors are encouraged to
submit their work in a finished form. By that time, they have normally
become so attached to it that they are psychologically incapable of
grappling with substantial criticism. However, because there is so
little to which one can become attached on the Internet, authors are
more prone to submit drafts with holes that others may be better
positioned to fill. Thus, a genuinely collaborative inquiry may be
fostered.
But for any of this to become a reality, we need to keep a sharp eye on
the changing political economy of electronic communications, question
the bases for the next Research Assessment Exercise, and, most of all,
remember that the only time Socrates submitted to "peer review", he was
forced to drink hemlock.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Feb 13 2001 - 16:24:07 GMT