The Cost Of Culture

Culture, as a weapon, has been at the forefront of most conflicts involving mass social change. Language, as one of the main proponents of culture, can cleave societies while reuniting them under a new constitution. The remixed culture of a freshly formed society bares both wounds and ideals forged in the smithy of change. Can this inheritance of combustible conscience be regarded as essentially free? If not, and I contest that it cannot, what is the cost of culture?

Creative authorship is an expression, in language, of culture. While language, being the tool of authorship, is subject to change, it remains paradoxically fixed within a moment of use and understanding. It is, as it exists and grows, a trace of conquest and reformation. At the point of impact, culture shows a map of destruction. Perhaps the flames of culture boil down to the core of human nature - restless, competitive, and parochial. On the other hand, however, humans are generous, communal, and optimistic. Therefore, following any occasion of devastation, reconstruction soon begins. Culture is an essential spark within the regenerative spirit. Its influence can be experienced through art, architecture and systems of new governance. Hence, culture and creativity have currency within the verdant economy of social evolution. The task before us is of how to value the currency of cultural purchase.

Present-day systems of communication have the potential to unite people across barriers of time and space. The ports of culture have never been more capacious; culture's exchange is lightening quick, both liberating and rapacious. Authorship is at an all-time high. Never before have privileged people read and written as much as they do, keeping up with wireless on the move. (And sadly, so many are being left behind, but this is a subject of a different article from the one I am writing now.).

The ceaseless rapidity of digital interchange forces open vaults of economic potential. Perhaps the slogan best capturing this exclusive spirit of abundance is, 'You Really Can Be a Creative Culturalist'. Yet the admonition attendant upon this claim is that culture necessitates change, based on perceived value going forward and underlying cost carried behind. To assume that culture is free is to call about a revolution.

A revolution is a form of cultural reconstruction and as circuitous in its impact as the rise and fall of global economies. The kinetic reaction forcing a shift from one state to another can be explosive. To contain the eruption, it seems to me, requires a reconstitution of the principal catalyst, namely, The Gain - the currency, the value, the underlying cost.

All cultures are derivative works in progress. These works trace significant genealogies. They are representations of an intangible human experience, custodianship of which vests in the word 'philanthropy'. Without a budget, philanthropy is an anthem, nothing more. This brings me rather abruptly to my final sentence, couched in the form of a vast question, "What are the inherent values and costs attached to Creative Commons practice?".



Posted by: Gina    Source