I had hoped my essay, "Against Transparency," might have inspired something of a marriage between the transparency movement and campaign finance reform. To that end, I had offered something old and something new, something borrowed, and, as is my style, something blue. But like high school all over again, I have obviously fumbled on the first date
Let's work this backwards.
Something blue: Yes of course my piece is "worr[ied]" (Weinberger) and "gloomy" (Miller/Klein), even "dour" (Abrams), as the commentators say. Of course it is. Dark is my color, and if you're in DC and not, then delusion is yours.
Something borrowed: Many have noted that "transparency" is a mixed good. Obviously, it is great in lots of contexts. The work of Carl Malamud, liberating government documents, to name one example I didn't discuss. The work of data.gov, to remark one I did. The transparency Jeff Rosen's gloomy essay calls for, to name a third. But equally obvious should be the point that I lifted from Archon Fung and his colleagues: "Whether and how new information is used to further public objectives depends upon its incorporation into complex chains of comprehension, action and response." Thus, where the data can't be understood, or doesn't say anything to be understood, it won't be used to "further public objectives." This point led me to the only thing in this essay that is, for me at least:
Something new: What do we do about the bad stuff that comes from this otherwise and often obvious good? The answer, I suggested, comes from linking this question to a structurally identical question in two other digital domains.
Take recorded music as the obvious first example. The Internet has made it trivially easy to "share" all sorts of content, including content protected by copyright law. Call that point 1. Point 2 is that that sharing has threatened important industries of culture. Put points 1 + 2 together and you invite three kinds of responses: Some think 1 + 2 means that we should kill the technology that enables 1. (This is the response the RIAA's behavior suggests, even if that's not what they mean.) Some think 1 + 2 means "too bad, so sad" for 2. (That's the response of too many in the Free Culture movement. "So what if the professional or commercial culture suffers? Who needs it? Let it go the way of opera, or barbershop quartets. But whatever you do, don't question the brilliance of 1." )
And some (me included) think that 1 + 2 means we need to celebrate the good in 1, while working out how to minimize the harm recognized in 2.
My essay made the same point about journalism. The Internet (and Craigslist) have radically increased the competition faced by newspapers. Call that point 1. Point 2 is that this pressure has threatened an important institution of democracy--journalism. And once again, when you put 1 + 2 together, you invite three kinds of responses: Some who scorn 1 because of 2. Some who ignore 2 because of their love of 1. And some who think we need to celebrate 1, but think again about how to avoid the costs of 2.
Once again, I am in the third camp. Craig is a hero; free access is an enormous good. So now let's get onto the hard question of how we assure the vigorous journalism a democracy needs.
These two examples were offered to suggest the pattern into which I believe the transparency debate falls. Here again: The Internet (and the Sunlight Foundation among others) have radically increased our effective access to important data about our government. Call that point 1. Point 2 is that some of these data don't actually compute--either because the data doesn't say anything (its imputed meaning notwithstanding) or because to understand what it says requires attention beyond the scope ordinary folks would rationally give it.
And so I suggested, here again, there were three sorts of responses: Some who would veto 1 because of the damage misunderstanding produces. Some who ignore 2 because of the obvious good in 1. And some who celebrate the good in 1 while thinking about ways to minimize the harm in 2.
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COMMENTS (1)
Lessig believes that transparency is inevitable and largely good, but leads to some difficulties we should figure out how to address. But that article would be far to boring to gain attention. So he writes a more sensational piece that still kinda says that, but is provocatively named 'Against Transparency' and gives ammunition to those who say he is .... against transparency!
Then his academic self re-emerges to complain that his point was hardly controversial. All he said, after all, was that transparency is inevitable and largely good, but leads to some difficulties we should figure out how to address. No reasonable person could argue against the boring version of the article that he ... view full comment
Lessig believes that transparency is inevitable and largely good, but leads to some difficulties we should figure out how to address. But that article would be far to boring to gain attention. So he writes a more sensational piece that still kinda says that, but is provocatively named 'Against Transparency' and gives ammunition to those who say he is .... against transparency!
Then his academic self re-emerges to complain that his point was hardly controversial. All he said, after all, was that transparency is inevitable and largely good, but leads to some difficulties we should figure out how to address. No reasonable person could argue against the boring version of the article that he didn't write.
Thus, Lessig demonstrates the importance of limited attention, by exploiting it to manufacture a controversy that gets his article more readers.
Cool!