Tinker in a Collective Shop

Check out Daniel B. Smith's article on Lewis Hyde in the New York Times Magazine: "What is Art For? Hyde is the author of "The Gift", an influential book exploring the idea of gift economies. It's a book that I have meant to read. Hyde seems to be a practical man as well as a man of ideas. He wrote an essay "Alcohol and Poetry: John Berryman and the Booze Talking" because he was reading Berryman's poems while working in a hospital's drunk ward and noticed the same kind of delusional language he found in the poetry.

Hyde is working on a new book about, in Smith's words, "recovering the idea of the cultural commons as a deeply American concept." Smith writes that Hyde's emphasis is not on the "lone genius" but the "inventor eager to share his discoveries."

(image from the Franklin Institute)

Despite [Ben] Franklin’s notorious talents of self-promotion, he was explicit that his inventions were not and should not be his to claim as property. Offered an exclusive patent on the Franklin stove, he refused on the grounds that the invention was based on previous innovations — specifically, on theories of heat and matter articulated by Isaac Newton and the Dutch physician Hermann Boerhaave. “That as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others,” Franklin wrote in his “Autobiography,” “we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.”

Of course, you might say, this was an easy position for Franklin to take: he was rich. People need their copyrights to live. But that’s exactly Hyde’s point: copyrights are utilitarian things. They generate money to pay a mortgage and buy groceries and continue working. Extended too far beyond their practical usefulness, copyrights not only contradict their original intent; they also wall creators off from the sources of their inventiveness. Genius, Hyde believes, needs to “tinker in a collective shop.”

[#1 posted by terrie , November 17, 2008 9:27 PM]

This is interesting to me in light of what I've read about the moon landing by India...it seems like India working, with their moon landing, to gain the same knowledge that other countries already have. Where would we be if that knowledge was collective, and not something that entire countries had to compete for?

On the other hand, perhaps competition breeds innovation. But what if that innovation was pooled?

[#2 posted by minTphresh , November 17, 2008 9:49 PM]

frranklin was a brilliant and fore-thinking genius. my favorite founding father.

[#3 posted by SKR , November 18, 2008 9:09 AM]

You should check out a post from yesterday or the day before on makezine.com that deals with communal labs. It seems that back in the 40's PopSci(if I remember correctly) allied with IBM and others set up a communal Lab for young people to perform electronics, physics, and chemistry experiments.

Also, this reminds me of Machine Lab in LA. Good stuff.

[#4 posted by cstatman , November 18, 2008 9:44 AM]

take the time, make the read. I carry my battered copy of "the gift" usually in the floorboards of my van. and re-read it whenever I need a boost.

very good stuff.

[#5 posted by Calyxa Omphalos , November 18, 2008 12:22 PM]

I've taken a small part in participating at the Temple of Goddess Spirituality Dedicated to Sekhmet, which is a project for the study of the gift economy. Find out more at http://www.sekhmettemple.com/

On the one hand, I'm thrilled that such a place exists, however I do feel some small shame in that men are excluded in many ways. It's good to see men exploring the gift economy.