Slate's Bizbox
the breakfast table: An e-mail conversation about the news of the day.

Richard Lanham and James O'Donnell

the breakfast table
entries
1234567891011121314
from: James O'Donnell

Skills vs. Content

Posted Wednesday, April 18, 2001, at 12:03 PM ET

Dick,

Still on my way to the library for that Barnett book, but look what we've done: started talking about this week's news (two more small massacres in Algeria last night) and ended up talking about a bunch of dead English guys of 100 years ago. Says something about our instincts. (Like the night at the conference in Algiers when the cuisine was a little, well, bland--I think they thought they were giving us European style to suit our finicky taste buds--and we suddenly realized that the last 15 minutes of conversation at the American table had been entirely devoted to Starbucks, Ben and Jerry's, and McDonald's: You may not be what you eat, but you are what you talk about.) How much of the high literacy you and I practice and care about is related to the skills, and how much of it is related to the content? All the modern "canon wars" arguments are about the content, no? Isn't it odd that we haven't found ways to create content-independent systems for inculcating the skills? Impossible?

That's where I find copyright interesting. The extension of the domain of copyright law internationally and globally continues the creation of a common space of ideas and images that we can share and draw upon. It's ironic to me that we're globalizing the traditional idea just as networked information is putting the very notion of copyright at risk. Copyright is an 18th-century invention that has made one kind of information economy possible, even delightful. Is it the one that we need to make the new information economy work? Nobody's had a clearly better idea yet, but the old idea is getting creaky.

jo'd

the breakfast table
entries
1234567891011121314
from: James O'Donnell

Skills vs. Content

Posted Wednesday, April 18, 2001, at 12:03 PM ET
Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Richard Lanham spent his active academic career teaching and writing about medieval and Renaissance literature at UCLA, but now spends his retirement fiddling around with electronic text. He is the author of The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts. James O'Donnell is a classics professor at the University of Pennsylvania and vice provost of computing. He is the author of Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES
Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
Imagine if...
Hiatt | What if McCain had waged his campaign based on respect?
Editorial: Meddlesome PalinKing: The Danger of Palin Power