I listened to This America Life--on the radio, instead of on the internet or my ipod, for a change--this afternoon. Judging by Ira's post-postscript, which included events from several years ago, it was a repeat of a pretty old episode. The whole thing was devoted to the story of how the American Psychological Association changed the entry on homosexuality in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The story had a moral, of a sort. Two, actually. First, the process by which the DSM was anything but linear; it required the confluence of a wide array of chains of events. Second, the change of the DSM--which bills itself as a statement of the consensus of the psychiatric community--was fundamentally unscientific in character. Or, more accurately, the questions itself--whether homosexuality (or anything else) is a disease--is not a scientific question. Instead, it is a moral question. The piece very effectively illustrates that the central figure in the psychology of homosexuality at the time, and who vigorously supported its classification as pathological, quite simply viewed homosexuality as unnatural and wrong. Alix Spiegel, the reporter, even gets him on tape claiming, in effect, to "know the homosexual" far better than his opponents. As an aside, it is partly TAL's learnedness--that it can subtly address serious theoretical questions, like the form of simple historical narrative, or the politics of scientific epistemology, with due colorings of Said and who knows who else--that makes it so enjoyable.
That said, I am not entirely comfortable with Speigel's conclusion--that the inclusion or not of a certain form of behavior in a list of psychiatric diseases is moral and hence not scientific. It is a conclusion that does not cut as deep as it could. This might not have been Spiegel's intention, but her piece ends with the impression that there was this moral error at the boundaries of a particular scientific discipline. What results is a sort of dualistic view of science, not unlike the distinction between the selection of paradigms and their "normal" internal elaboration. This sort of bifurcated account might seem powerful for the natural sciences, for it theorizes the messiness of scientific disputes while still maintaining a place for disinterested empirical inquiry. But it is hardly without problems. The most pressing is that it goes perhaps too far in presenting paradigms as arbitrary. Paradigm shifts might not happen entirely according to scientific principles of confirmation, but they do nonetheless involve the consideration and investigation of reality. In emphasizing the super- or sub-scientific character of paradigm shifts, a bifurcated account tends to downplay the grounding of paradigmatic disputes in reality; a paradigm enters a crisis when, after all, its link with reality somehow becomes too tenuous. But if a paradigm's relationship with reality, in itself, is not a matter of scientific description, then what is it? This relationship matters, for it is only by appeal to it that paradigms can be said to be more or less truthful. Otherwise, paradigms run the risk of representing a form of epistemological relativism--by autonomously setting the rules of what is confirmed scientific truth within them.
Likewise, the moral questions at the boundaries of psychiatry cannot be neatly kept away from the discipline's scientific core. Psychiatry purports to study human beings' cognitive and emotional interactions with each other and the world, but the territory it seeks to enter is not vacant. It is a major function of human language in general to describe those very interactions. Our own "pre-scientific" descriptions are not disinterested and morally neutral. Perhaps psychiatry (and psychology and sociology as well) thinks its role is to supplement our morally interested language with one that is scientifically distanced. Thus, the account would be that our language is weighed down by traditional moral baggage. But that is an error. The problem is not with the particulars of our language but with what it attempts to describe. Our perception of the world and the significance we give to our interactions are the very stuff of morality. Any science that seeks to contend in the crowded discursive field of the description of human activity and psychology must recognize that by necessity it thereby becomes a moral science. Science always attempts to describe the world we live in, but a moral science strikes closer to home by describing the human world. Just think of the example of punishment. What is a transgression of social norms? Is it a sin? A psychological disorder? Social deviance? (Indeed, even the question cannot be phrased in neutral terms, and I reveal my sociological tendencies with its wording.) Those three possibilities all matter deeply for how we react to a given abnormal behavior. A sin deserves moralizing exhortation or punitive sanction. A disorder requires treatment, perhaps through analysis or drugs. Social deviance, on the other hand, is a social fact; it demands social reforms that adjust the social context and environment.
Whether or not homosexuality is a psychological disease is most certainly a moral question, in that it deeply implicates decisions about how we feel the human world is or ought to be organized. But the perpetuation of psychiatry as a discourse is no less a moral matter. Its presence or relative dominance impacts how we orient ourselves to each other . . . the very essence of morality.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Saturday, May 19, 2007
intellectual property sophistry
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/opinion/20helprin.html
The piece is entitled, "A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn’t Its Copyright?" And that is the meat of the argument. The remarkable thing about the column is that it presents the expiration of copyright as an example of governmental confiscation. The author, one Mark Helprin, even acknowledges the obvious counterargument--that no right to intellectual property precedes government protection of intellectual productions--but dismisses it by comparison to other kinds of property, which also require government protection but which are not subject to similar "total confiscation". I call this sophistry because "confiscation" is an entirely inaccurate, loaded word. Were, following Helprin's counterexample, Goldman Sachs to be "impounded", it's true, that like a work of art whose copyright expires, the company's erstwhile owners would no longer be able to profit from the exploitation of that particular bit of property. What is "confiscated", according to Helprin, are property rights. In the case of Goldman Sachs, it's largely the right to invest certain corporately owned assets freely; in the case of intellectual property, it's the right to exclusive control over the reproduction of the work. But there's something funky about this use of "confiscation," which in normal language means the taking away of something. The creator of a work still possesses the work (and as many copies as he or she has made or wishes to make); in contrast, the shareholders of Goldman Sachs, following the seizure of their company, lose all access to their former property. This is Jefferson's point when he compares ideas to fire. It's telling that Helprin resorts to empty rhetoric in his reply: "The flow and proportion of the elements of a work of art, its subtle engineering, even its surface glosses, combine substance and style indistinguishably in a creation for which the right of property is natural and becoming." That works of art have a certain individuality is a nobly Romantic sentiment, but it is entirely besides the point. What Jefferson is observing is that unlike a car company, where my using the company's factories precludes--in a very physical way--anyone else from using the machines (never mind for the moment that it's never just 'I' that exploits capital), my performing your cello sonata in no way prevents you from also performing your cello sonata. Thus, the government, in mandating the expiration of copyrights, is not "confiscating" the intellectual property in question--you can still perform the cello sonata. Instead, it is merely allowing others unrestricted access to it. Indeed, the government is not even meeting confiscation halfway--by, for example, facilitating the universal distribution of copyright-expired works.
Now, Helprin's response to all this would, I think, be that the apparent distinction between physical and intellectual property, which makes his use of the term 'confiscation' so intuitively fishy, is erroneous. This is not the same thing as the explicit conclusion of the column--that intellectual property ought not to be "disfavored"--for that conclusion, as it is presented, presupposes that the two broad classes of property are fundamentally comparable. For Helprin, property really is just the right to exploit it. Thus, the right of a owner of intellectual profit to profit by controlling access to the work of art is entirely analogous to the right of the owners of a corporation to profit from their capital. Actually, the example of Goldman Sachs is a very good one for Helprin's case, because, after all, physically, what does Goldmans Sachs actually possess? Offices? Computers? All of the assets that matter only exist on paper, and only as long as Goldman Sachs' rights to them are enforced by laws and norms. Other property rights are held for perpetuity, why not the intellectual variety as well?
My answer would be that although it's possible to think of intellectual works as commodities--as, indeed, they are, currently, for as long as their copyrights last--Helprin does nothing to show they ought to be thought of as commodities, exclusively. The key players in Helprin's argument are "those who try to extract a living from the uncertain arts of writing and composing". And of course, in a society where by and large livings are extracted by selling commodities on markets, making a living by selling works of art requires protection of the commodity-ness of their products. To perhaps reiterate the obvious point, there is no commodity where there is no scarcity, and in the absence of copyright protections, there is no scarcity of intellectual products (Jefferson's point again). But I submit that intellectual property is a fictitious commodity. Unlike the canonical fictitious commodities of land, labor, and money, the contradictions of the commodification intellectual production might not have the potential to cause social upheaval and political revolution. Still, like land, labor, and money, intellectual productions have a social existence that does not cleanly fit into the shape of a commodity market. To turn to my own empty rhetoric for a moment, works of the intellect are not merely ways for artists and writers to make a living; they also represent our--as a society, as humanity--cultural patrimony. We, as the audience of intellectual products, tolerate the monopolistic exploitation of works as intellectual property, insofar as we must, in order to make the economics of the work of the mind not prohibitive. Indeed, as with any fictitious commodity, the pure ascension of the market in intellectual products would mangle the world of the mind. A pure market would mean, of course, no "subsidies" or "protections" . . . goodbye NPR (or at least, it's non-news side), the Smithsonian, the NEA. The works most characterized by "subtle engineering" are simply not market-profitable.
I am not saying that limited-duration copyright follows from the necessity of non-market institutions to support the arts. Instead, the fictitiousness of intellectual products as strictly market entities from the side of supply ought to lead us to question its complete commodification on the side of demand. Copyrights force us to into the market to access works. But we have deep-seated feelings that the life of the mind is not to be bought and sold but instead shared, participated in, and critically examined. What we have, then, are two competing interests--in other words, a double movement. On the one hand, there is the interest in a free exchange of ideas--free in the sense of there being no barrier, including economic, to participation. On the other, there is the need to feed and clothe, in the context of a market society, those who make these intellectual products--this interest seems to push for a market of ideas in the sense of trading works as commodities. Helprin, like any good liberal-market fundamentalist, ignores the former interest, implying it should be subordinated to the necessities of the market. But the interest in an untrammeled exchange in the work of the mind is real as well, and the body politic has every right to pursue it by the means of copyright expiration.
The piece is entitled, "A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn’t Its Copyright?" And that is the meat of the argument. The remarkable thing about the column is that it presents the expiration of copyright as an example of governmental confiscation. The author, one Mark Helprin, even acknowledges the obvious counterargument--that no right to intellectual property precedes government protection of intellectual productions--but dismisses it by comparison to other kinds of property, which also require government protection but which are not subject to similar "total confiscation". I call this sophistry because "confiscation" is an entirely inaccurate, loaded word. Were, following Helprin's counterexample, Goldman Sachs to be "impounded", it's true, that like a work of art whose copyright expires, the company's erstwhile owners would no longer be able to profit from the exploitation of that particular bit of property. What is "confiscated", according to Helprin, are property rights. In the case of Goldman Sachs, it's largely the right to invest certain corporately owned assets freely; in the case of intellectual property, it's the right to exclusive control over the reproduction of the work. But there's something funky about this use of "confiscation," which in normal language means the taking away of something. The creator of a work still possesses the work (and as many copies as he or she has made or wishes to make); in contrast, the shareholders of Goldman Sachs, following the seizure of their company, lose all access to their former property. This is Jefferson's point when he compares ideas to fire. It's telling that Helprin resorts to empty rhetoric in his reply: "The flow and proportion of the elements of a work of art, its subtle engineering, even its surface glosses, combine substance and style indistinguishably in a creation for which the right of property is natural and becoming." That works of art have a certain individuality is a nobly Romantic sentiment, but it is entirely besides the point. What Jefferson is observing is that unlike a car company, where my using the company's factories precludes--in a very physical way--anyone else from using the machines (never mind for the moment that it's never just 'I' that exploits capital), my performing your cello sonata in no way prevents you from also performing your cello sonata. Thus, the government, in mandating the expiration of copyrights, is not "confiscating" the intellectual property in question--you can still perform the cello sonata. Instead, it is merely allowing others unrestricted access to it. Indeed, the government is not even meeting confiscation halfway--by, for example, facilitating the universal distribution of copyright-expired works.
Now, Helprin's response to all this would, I think, be that the apparent distinction between physical and intellectual property, which makes his use of the term 'confiscation' so intuitively fishy, is erroneous. This is not the same thing as the explicit conclusion of the column--that intellectual property ought not to be "disfavored"--for that conclusion, as it is presented, presupposes that the two broad classes of property are fundamentally comparable. For Helprin, property really is just the right to exploit it. Thus, the right of a owner of intellectual profit to profit by controlling access to the work of art is entirely analogous to the right of the owners of a corporation to profit from their capital. Actually, the example of Goldman Sachs is a very good one for Helprin's case, because, after all, physically, what does Goldmans Sachs actually possess? Offices? Computers? All of the assets that matter only exist on paper, and only as long as Goldman Sachs' rights to them are enforced by laws and norms. Other property rights are held for perpetuity, why not the intellectual variety as well?
My answer would be that although it's possible to think of intellectual works as commodities--as, indeed, they are, currently, for as long as their copyrights last--Helprin does nothing to show they ought to be thought of as commodities, exclusively. The key players in Helprin's argument are "those who try to extract a living from the uncertain arts of writing and composing". And of course, in a society where by and large livings are extracted by selling commodities on markets, making a living by selling works of art requires protection of the commodity-ness of their products. To perhaps reiterate the obvious point, there is no commodity where there is no scarcity, and in the absence of copyright protections, there is no scarcity of intellectual products (Jefferson's point again). But I submit that intellectual property is a fictitious commodity. Unlike the canonical fictitious commodities of land, labor, and money, the contradictions of the commodification intellectual production might not have the potential to cause social upheaval and political revolution. Still, like land, labor, and money, intellectual productions have a social existence that does not cleanly fit into the shape of a commodity market. To turn to my own empty rhetoric for a moment, works of the intellect are not merely ways for artists and writers to make a living; they also represent our--as a society, as humanity--cultural patrimony. We, as the audience of intellectual products, tolerate the monopolistic exploitation of works as intellectual property, insofar as we must, in order to make the economics of the work of the mind not prohibitive. Indeed, as with any fictitious commodity, the pure ascension of the market in intellectual products would mangle the world of the mind. A pure market would mean, of course, no "subsidies" or "protections" . . . goodbye NPR (or at least, it's non-news side), the Smithsonian, the NEA. The works most characterized by "subtle engineering" are simply not market-profitable.
I am not saying that limited-duration copyright follows from the necessity of non-market institutions to support the arts. Instead, the fictitiousness of intellectual products as strictly market entities from the side of supply ought to lead us to question its complete commodification on the side of demand. Copyrights force us to into the market to access works. But we have deep-seated feelings that the life of the mind is not to be bought and sold but instead shared, participated in, and critically examined. What we have, then, are two competing interests--in other words, a double movement. On the one hand, there is the interest in a free exchange of ideas--free in the sense of there being no barrier, including economic, to participation. On the other, there is the need to feed and clothe, in the context of a market society, those who make these intellectual products--this interest seems to push for a market of ideas in the sense of trading works as commodities. Helprin, like any good liberal-market fundamentalist, ignores the former interest, implying it should be subordinated to the necessities of the market. But the interest in an untrammeled exchange in the work of the mind is real as well, and the body politic has every right to pursue it by the means of copyright expiration.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Starting over
There were, previously, exactly 8 posts here, none less than a couple years old. I still liked aspects of a few of them, but by and large they made me cringe. So, they're gone.
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