Introduction

Andrew L. Russell

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139856553.003

1 - Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014

Andrew L. Russell

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Andrew L. Russell: Affiliation:
Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey

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Summary

The architects of the twenty-first-century digital age proclaim that openness is their foundational value. Their work is exemplified in movements that embrace open science, open access publishing, open source software, open innovation business strategies, open education, and so on. President Barack Obama’s “Open Government Initiative,” announced on his first day in office in 2009, captured the collective spirit of these efforts: “We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in government.”

The ideology of openness, as it is articulated and practiced in the early twenty-first century, would have surprised the critic and historian of technology Lewis Mumford. In his 1964 essay, “Authoritarian and Democratic Technics,” he wondered: “Why has our age surrendered so easily to the controllers, the manipulators, the conditioners of an authoritarian technics?” The advocates of openness, however, have not surrendered so easily. Instead, they sense the dawn of a radical, almost utopian transformation in which power hierarchies are flattened, secret activities are made transparent, individuals are empowered, and knowledge itself is democratized. They welcome innovation, thrive on diversity and change, insist on the sanctity of autonomy and freedom, and have an unqualified disdain for authority, restrictions, and gatekeepers.

Type: Chapter
Information: Open Standards and the Digital Age
History, Ideology, and Networks
, pp. 1 - 24

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139856553.003 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2014

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1 - Introduction

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