Possibly of interest: my most recent presentation on the logical contradictions
inherent in the concept of "open" in our current capitalist society, using the
method of critical dialectics developed by the Frankfurt School (aka open
dialectics).
Abstract
In contemporary Western society the word open is used as if the concept were
essentially good. This is a logical fallacy; the only concept that is in
essence good is the concept good itself. In this paper I will argue that this
is a dangerous fallacy that opens the door to misdirection and co-optation of
genuine advocates of the public good accidentally through misconception and
deliberately by actors whose motives are far from open, that a critical
dialectic approach is useful to unravel and counter such fallacies, and present
a simple pedagogical technique that I have found to be effective to teach
critical thinking to university students in this area. The province of Ontario
under the Ford government describes itself as open for business. In this
context, open means open for exploitation, and closure is protection for the
environment and vulnerable people. This is one example of openwashing, taking
advantage of the use of the term by large numbers of “open” advocates whose
work is based on very different motives.
Open access, according to the Budapest Open Access Initiative, is a potential
unprecedented public good, a collective global sharing of the scholarly
knowledge of humankind. A sizable portion of the open access movement is
adamant that open access requires nothing less than all of the world’s scholars
making their work not only free of charge, but free for downstream manipulation
and re-use for commercial purposes. This frees up knowledge for creative new
approaches to more rapidly advance our knowledge; it is also a new area for
capitalist expansion and can be seen as selling out scholarship. Is this
necessary, sufficient, or even desirable to achieve the vision of global
sharing of open access? Open education can be seen as the next phase in the
democratization of education, a new field for capitalist expansion, a tool for
authoritarian control and/or a tool for further control of the next generation
proletariat or precariat. Open government can facilitate an expansion of
democracy, to further engage citizens in decision-making, a means of enhancing
and improving government services, and/or another means of transitioning public
services to the private sector that is typical of the (perhaps post) neoliberal
era. Proactive open government can mean more transparent, accountable
government; it can also mean open access to the documents and data that those
in power choose to share. This paper will analyze the rhetoric of key documents
from the open movements, evidence presented to support these beliefs, and
explore whether these belief systems reflect myth based on misconception and/or
misdirection by actors with ulterior motives using a theoretical lens drawn
from the political economics, particularly Hegelian dialectics in the tradition
of the Frankfurt School and contemporary Marxist analysis.
Link to full presentation:
https://ruor.uottawa.ca/handle/10393/39300
Questions and comments are welcome, on the GOAL list or the blogpost:
https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2019/06/12/the-dialectic-of-open/
best,
Dr. Heather Morrison
Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa
Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa
Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight
Project
sustainingknowledgecommons.org
heather.morri...@uottawa.ca
https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706
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