Keen, Andrew. The cult of the
amateur: how today’s internet is killing our culture. New York : Currency Books, 2007.
In the book “the cult of the amateur: how
today’s internet is killing our culture” Andrew Keen show us his pessimistic perspective
of the Internet.
According to Keen, the Internet is destroying
music, media, economy and people, in special the professionals. In a very
biased way, he tells us stories about huge music shops, music recorders and
newspapers that went out of the business. Although in the very last few pages
of the book he envisions a way in which the Internet can be good, matching
professionals and the web, during the whole book he sticks to the point that the
Internet is very bad for all of us.
One of the main points he defends in the first
half of the book is that Internet gives a lot of credit to amateurs, leaving
professionals behind or out or work.
According to him only professionals should
write and publish news, only professionals should play, record and publish
music, because everything that is done by non-professionals is not good, or is
junk. This is a very strange idea if we consider all the great things many
amateurs do and share on the Internet (or not). (Without even touching the
matter of what being a professional means).
Media is biased, we know that professionals
most of the times have to follow the news agencies agendas and political line,
and are not free do write and express exactly what they know or think. Besides
that, we cannot think that all professionals have always good intentions and
disseminate the news in an objective and impartial way. There is no such
impartiality and objectivity when communication is concerned.
If we consider the Arab Spring and movements
like what we saw in Brazil during the confederations’ soccer cup, we will see
very clearly that amateurs are not sharing only silly and low culture at social
networks, they are exchanging information, they are discussing their rights and
exercising their power as critical, conscious and active citizens.
Wikipedia may not be perfect, but if you think
it is not good, the idea is that you should go there and help to make it
better. Complain without acting is not a welcome behavior. If is not correct,
fix it.
Pedophilia, pornography, gambling, crimes and
many other problems the author attributes to internet have always been part of
the human history. Internet is not introducing it. And, of course, we need to
find ways to avoid that those things destroy or spoil the life of many people. Education
for digital times must alert people, including students of all ages about
security at the internet as well.
Keen talks about the Internet as being guilty
for many social and cultural problems we face, without mentioning all the good
things it brings to us. I could mention many good reasons to give all support
to the Internet and free access to culture, but I will mention only online
education that is increasing and proving to be a very trustable and honest way
to improve the education of many students in many countries.
I do not mean to say and I do not believe that Internet
includes only good things, as well as I do not believe that CDs, books, newspapers,
movies produced by professionals are always good. We have good and bad
materials in both worlds. All we need now is a very good educational system
that includes the digital universe not only to have the students produce
quality materials to share, as well as to make them very good and critical
readers of the multimodal texts that circulate on the Internet and outside of
it under the chancel or seal of famous publishers or brands.
In a very pessimistic or even apocalyptic view
of Internet 2.0, and in a very elitist perspective, Andrew Keen, talks about
the Internet using an aggressive ironic language, blaming the Internet for all
kinds of problems we face as individuals and as a society. It is worth saying
that those problems belong to the humanity for hundreds or thousands of years
and they are not the computers fault.
Keen closes one of the chapters of the book
called ‘moral disorder’ with the following paragraph:
From hypersexed teenagers, to identity thieves, to
compulsive gamblers and addicts of all stripes, the moral fabric of our society
is being unraveled by Web 2.0. I seduces us into acting on our most deviant
instincts and allows us to succumb to our most destructive vices. And it is
corroding and corrupting the values we share as a nation.” (p.163).
According to Keen, Paul Simon said that “We’re
going to 2.0” (p. 113), and added “Like it or not, that is what is going to
happen”(p.113). That is exactly the point. It is not worth it to complain and
blame the computer and the Internet 2.0 for all our problems. Internet changed
our world, challenged economy as well as many professions and jobs. It is
forcing our creativity and having many people, professionals and entrepreneurs to
adapt their business and life style to a different society in certain aspects.
It also created, and is still creating, many other hobbies, jobs and
professions. It gives voice to many people, it distributes information and
knowledge to many people. This is our new chance to offer society similar
opportunities to learn by giving access to information and culture that is not
only produced for and by the aristocracy.
However as it usually happens with most novelties,
we need to find the best way to use it. We need to help people to deal with it
in the best and most fruitful way as possible. One of the ways to do that is
preparing good and critical readers of online texts.
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