The previous article mentioned that scholarship should actively confront the web; on the other hand, the web also needs scholarship. Through scholars’ active intervention in network media, on the one hand the possibilities for the development of scholarship will be expanded; on the other hand, distinctive elements will also be brought into the development of network technology.
In an even earlier essay on the web, I cited Newell Castells’s historical review—“Internet culture” contains four layers: a technical elite culture that pursues knowledge and esteems excellence; a hacker culture that yearns for “freedom” and play; “virtual communists” who advocate sharing and practicality; and entrepreneurs in search of business opportunities.
Of course, we can also count the military background represented by ARPANET, the predecessor of the Internet.
These major background elements of network technology represent different dimensions of “value,” or rather, dimensions of meaning. I have emphasized that technology is not value-neutral, but value-laden; yet value is not linear, one-dimensional, or simply either good or bad, but multiple. One technology may carry multiple dimensions of value. Network technology is an epoch-making technology, and its birth and development are precisely interwoven with meaningful elements from all sides.
One dimension of value implies a certain form of pursuit. For example, the value of the military is “order”; the original intention of ARPANET was to create a communication network that could issue commands across the whole system from any location even if the command center were destroyed. After being freed from direct military control, the Internet did not thereby eliminate all elements of military culture. In a certain sense, the Internet has always been a mechanism of strict order, and it can at any time be used to command, unify, and monitor. People are still constructing “order” or “power” through the Internet.
Another element is the opposite of “order”: the destructive element represented by “hackers.” Of course, destruction itself is not what is valuable, but the excitement, elation, and sense of accomplishment gained from breaking through an existing order are indeed the hackers’ interest. Destruction does not necessarily always mean a negative force; on the contrary, it is often a source of vitality. The development of the Internet has also relied on the contributions of hackers and tech geeks.
The third element is business companies. Sometimes they submit to order, sometimes they are willing to exploit loopholes; in any case, their goal is profit. They use the Internet to seek wealth. Needless to say, with the development of the Internet, the infiltration of commercial elements is almost inevitable; of course, the involvement of merchants can also provide powerful impetus for technological development.
The fourth is grassroots culture, or the so-called “virtual communists.” They do not want to make a killing, nor do they want to spend too much; they esteem free access, and ideally distribution according to need, obtaining on the Internet what is useful to them without paying any cost. Strictly speaking, this element has no real “pursuit” as such; it merely demands participation in sharing. The military culture that esteems order and the hacker culture that esteems freedom, the commercial culture that demands profit and the grassroots culture that demands sharing—these together constitute the tensions in technological development.
But the final element that cannot be ignored is “scholarship.” If the first four forces constitute the four corners of a quadrilateral, restraining one another, then the position of scholarship is more like an intermediary regulator. Scholars represent a kind of elite culture; they pursue knowledge and also value reputation. They esteem freedom, but they do not praise equality without labor. They often also submit to existing order, yet at any moment they can provide criticism and rebellion. What scholars pursue is pure knowledge, as well as the glory of climbing the peaks of knowledge.
Open-source software represented by Linux reflects the force of the scholarly element. Grassroots users may choose open-source software because it is free; business companies may also profit from open-source software (for example, Android), but the aspirations of open-source software programmers are not merely sharing or profit. Their more fundamental pursuit is, after all, “learning” and “honor.” Linux’s original purpose was mutual learning. Many open-source programmers do not charge fees, and they give up their own control over the software, allowing it to be distributed and modified at will; but they generally at least insist on one thing: retaining copyright information. And what is called copyright information is in fact a declaration of relinquishing copyright in the traditional sense. A more apt term is “responsibility for the edition” (see On “Copyright” in the Internet Age). And the true purpose of this “responsibility for the edition” declaration is to ensure the openness of the work; in academic terms, it is the basic requirement to “cite sources when quoting.” The significance of citing sources when quoting lies in this: first, to promote the dissemination of scholarship; second, to ensure the original creator’s honor in the course of dissemination; and third, to strengthen exchanges among scholars, foster the formation of an academic ecosystem, and encourage scholars to criticize and improve one another.
The value dimension of scholarship cannot be ignored in the development of computer and network technology. In addition to being based in research institutes and university campuses, scholarly culture also permeates various other cultures, just as the military can support scientists and companies can also support scientists. But scientists after all have their own independent set of pursuits. The Ministry of National Defense may cultivate open-source software for the sake of security and independence; companies may also borrow open-source software in order to make money (such as Android); the public may also support open-source software because it is free. But if there is a lack of contribution from developers whose interest lies in pure knowledge-seeking and personal honor, then the entire ecosystem is still not perfect. Granted, in any era scholars are dispensable beings; without scholarship, with only the military and craftsmanship, civilization can still develop—but something is nevertheless missing.
So let us think: compared with the West, what is lacking in the environment for the development of China’s Internet? The pursuit of power and money is naturally not lacking; the pursuit of destruction and free access is not lacking either. What is truly lacking is precisely the element of scholarship—openness and a sense of honor, an environment for learning and criticism.
What, then, is the difference between Baidu Baike and Wikipedia? The most crucial point lies in the norms and richness of citation. If one says that Chinese people lack copyright awareness, the real issue is fundamentally the lack of scholarly culture. Either one views network information from the purely practical dimension, like grassroots culture; or one exploits it by any means necessary, like a merchant; or one seeks to control it, like the military; or one rebels against and destroys it. Very few people look at the web like scholars do, infusing it with the spirit of scholarship.
Then let us look again at why the networking of China’s academic world has progressed so slowly. This is absolutely not because Chinese scholars are especially aloof, especially devoted to scholarship and unconcerned with worldly matters, especially attached to tradition and unwilling to follow trends, or especially pure and therefore rejecting clever tricks and contrivances. The root cause is precisely that they themselves have always lacked scholarly spirit.
Back then, when classmates saw me post all my usual papers on my blog, they kindly reminded me that I should retain some reserve and guard against plagiarism. I was unimpressed. What puzzled me was: shouldn’t making papers public be only natural? Why do scholars create? To pursue scholarship, to disseminate their ideas, to promote exchange and criticism… for these purposes, shouldn’t they make their work public as much as possible? What I found strange was this: why is it that all kinds of traditional newspapers, journals, and the like have long since proactively entered the web, opened electronic editions, and made all their articles freely available, while academic works, of all things, must be paid for in order to be downloaded? Why is it that all kinds of news websites have opened interactive functions, allowing readers to participate in criticism and discussion at any time, while academic works still can only be downloaded in PDF form, refusing interaction and criticism? Why is it that all walks of life have built their own circles on the web and exchanged views with one another, and public figures from every field have opened their own blog homepages to interact with others, while scholars still continue to pretend to be mysterious?
Since the Enlightenment, the openness of knowledge has been the pursuit or demand of scholars. That is the significance of libraries and museums: libraries are not for power or profit, but for enabling as many people as possible to obtain knowledge as conveniently as possible. But once libraries and museums entered China, they both changed their flavor. Yet we can excuse this by saying: China has its own national conditions, there are simply too many people, and completely free access to libraries is not really feasible. Fine, then what about the Internet? The Enlightenment ideal of the “republic of letters” is closest to the environment of the Internet. If novels and popular reading matter that seek profit have some reason to refuse full public access, then what about academic works? Compared with novelists and publishers, scholars do not make money by selling books at all—taking salaries and teaching fees, and having already received project grants, why not put their research results online? Aside from those patented technologies that need to be protected, why should research that was originally meant to promote the accumulation of human knowledge have to be surrounded by layer upon layer of barriers? Especially since academic works today are themselves written with the help of computers and the Internet, why are they unwilling to publish through the web? If academic conferences are intended for exchange and criticism, then why not make use of online forums?
The key lies in the fact that in China’s academic world, whether in creation or in exchange, there is fundamentally a lack of scholarly spirit. Writing papers is for evaluating titles and awards, while holding academic conferences is for submitting expenses and securing research funds. So of course scholars refuse to “go online,” because papers published on the web contribute in no way to prizes, and exchanges conducted online cannot be used to claim funds. How could one expect scholars to have the leisure for that?
The web needs scholarship, and scholarship needs the web; but in the final analysis, scholarship needs scholarship. When scholars refuse to enter the web, they would do well to ask themselves honestly: why not go online? Is it because they are “too scholarly”? Or because they lack scholarly spirit?
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
Leave a Reply