Critique of Morozov article on Makers. Regards,
Jock Begin forwarded message: > From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewa...@warpspeed.com> > Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Evgeny Morozov's New Yorker put-down of the Maker > movement misses the point > Date: January 11, 2014 at 9:08:49 AM EST > To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-...@warpspeed.com> > Reply-To: dewayne-...@warpspeed.com > > Evgeny Morozov’s New Yorker put-down of the Maker movement misses the point > The critic of all things "Internet" turns his baleful eye on the > revolutionary do-it-yourself masses > By ANDREW LEONARD > Jan 7 2014 > <http://www.salon.com/2014/01/07/meet_the_anti_maker_evgeny_morozov/> > > It is a peculiarity of Evgeny Morozov, the foremost critic of our Twitterific > age, that he could write 4,000 words in the New Yorker disemboweling the > “Maker” movement without giving any indication whatsoever that he had ever > talked to a single Maker or even so much as attended a Maker Faire. > > It’s peculiar, but not surprising. This is Morozov’s self-admitted shtick. He > grapples with the arguments that people make about things, instead of the > people or the things themselves. > > For a hands-on, do-it-yourself phenomenon like the Maker movement, the > Morozov approach has some obvious drawbacks. It is one thing to claim, as > Morozov does, that the Makers, like their forebears in the Arts and Crafts > movement in the 19th century, will be “doomed” by their “reluctance to talk > about institutions and political change” into “channelling the spirit of > labor reform into consumerism and D.I.Y. tinkering.” Morozov might well be > right in this. The Makers may not unleash the “revolution” that so many Maker > evangelists claim is inevitable. And where there is hype, there is a myriad > of opportunities for a man bearing a sharp lampoon. > > But by confining himself to attacking the overweening Maker rhetoric, Morozov > misses the fun. And by missing the fun, he misses the point. > > I went to a Maker Faire last year and delighted in rubbing elbows with an > excited crowd — diverse in age, class, race and gender — that exulted in > getting its hands dirty with everything from 3-D printers to Lego sets to > knitting needles to giant Tesla coils. I did not need to parse the political > implications of this happy hubbub for its implications for the future of the > working class to understand that there was something obviously healthy about > the energy bubbling over at the Faire. Compared to your typical amusement > park the gathering was an anarchic, collectively engineered, upwelling of > nerdy positivity. You didn’t come to the Faire to be entertained. You came to > entertain yourself. You came to learn and teach and play. > > Is a third industrial revolution in the offing? I don’t know. But what is > indisputable is that the tools of production are cheaper to obtain and easier > to use than ever before — and that development must have some sort of > significance. > > Morozov does not directly deny that the means of production have been made > more affordable. But he elides this absolutely crucial point by saying that > the difficulties of gaining access to capital or expensive tools have been > replaced by the difficulty of getting the attention necessary to make your > Kickstarter dreams come true. > > [snip] > > Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: <http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/> > >
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