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A review by caramm
Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age by Clay Shirky
2.0
I was right there with Shirky at the beginning, but as this book progressed, I got more and more turned off by some of the latent assumptions buried in his thought process. Obviously, he's a very smart guy. And obviously, he really believes that social software and the current creator-culture are good things that can be very beneficial for society. But Shirky also has some pretty rigid values of his own that he clings to while attempting to dismantle other "traditional" values. He is a firm creative-content elitist, and has a hierarchy of creative endeavors that he cannot seem to imagine subverting. He's also a data-publicity evangelist, which I am suspicious of on principle.
His treatment of fandom in particular sits poorly with me. There is an extremely dismissive tone toward what he perceives as a lesser effort, and it's clear that he only has the most cursory familiarity with what fandom is and what it can do. Shirky mistakenly asserts that fandom is solely or primarily about self-pleasure, or at best, in-group entertainment. He is, of course, wrong. But this ignorance of the topic is not the most problematic aspect of his treatment of it.
His primary contrast with fandom's creative collaboration is the collaboration of the programming community. While he does not overtly gender these two groups, he fails to understand that they are culturally gendered. His hierarchy of creative collaboration, then, is a celebration of a stereotypically male kind of participation at the expense of a stereotypically female kind of engagement. He fails to account for the fact that the programming community seems to draw a certain kind of participant not only because of participant choice, but also because women and certain minorities are active encouraged NOT to participate. There are barriers to entry in the programming community that are a key part of what makes it the way it is today. (This is not to say that the programming space lacks women and minorities, but there are serious barriers to entry into the in-group.) On the other hand, fandom is seen, rightly or wrongly, as being a heavily female space, and Shirky's dismissal of the extraordinary effort and artistry and social criticism involved in fandom may be a product of his feeling of being out-group (though I doubt he made much effort to engage).
My other major beef with the book was the focus on the "2 billion" new participants in this cognitive surplus-using culture. Access to the internet, and to the other social software platforms that Shirky fangirls over throughout his book, is limited currently to the wealthiest members of the global community. It is trickling down and becoming more widely disseminated, but as it stands, this kind of participatory opportunity is far from universal. It is heavily concentrated in the West. The emphasis on engaging the "2 billion" leaves me wondering what the other 5 billion people on the planet are supposed to do, how they are supposed to engage with the global community. Or are they? Shirky is quiet on the subject of there being merit to truly broadening and universalizing participation.
Overall, I felt the book lacked the strong call to action I was anticipating. Instead, it closes with some tips on how to make a successful social media site, I guess with the hope that the reader wants to make one that matches up with Shirky's hierarchy of values. I felt like I got a good bit of the what and the how, and the who (including the who not), but I never really gathered the why - why is cognitive surplus good? Why is social software good? Ultimately, I did not feel that the book gives a good sense of why connection is good for humanity in the abstract.
Seeing as this is by far the longest review I've ever written, though, I think it's safe to say that there is a lot of value in this book as fodder for deep thought and discussion about the aspects of modern creative collaboration. So cheers to Shirky for that!
For a much better book that addresses some of the same content as Cognitive Surplus, try Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal.
His treatment of fandom in particular sits poorly with me. There is an extremely dismissive tone toward what he perceives as a lesser effort, and it's clear that he only has the most cursory familiarity with what fandom is and what it can do. Shirky mistakenly asserts that fandom is solely or primarily about self-pleasure, or at best, in-group entertainment. He is, of course, wrong. But this ignorance of the topic is not the most problematic aspect of his treatment of it.
His primary contrast with fandom's creative collaboration is the collaboration of the programming community. While he does not overtly gender these two groups, he fails to understand that they are culturally gendered. His hierarchy of creative collaboration, then, is a celebration of a stereotypically male kind of participation at the expense of a stereotypically female kind of engagement. He fails to account for the fact that the programming community seems to draw a certain kind of participant not only because of participant choice, but also because women and certain minorities are active encouraged NOT to participate. There are barriers to entry in the programming community that are a key part of what makes it the way it is today. (This is not to say that the programming space lacks women and minorities, but there are serious barriers to entry into the in-group.) On the other hand, fandom is seen, rightly or wrongly, as being a heavily female space, and Shirky's dismissal of the extraordinary effort and artistry and social criticism involved in fandom may be a product of his feeling of being out-group (though I doubt he made much effort to engage).
My other major beef with the book was the focus on the "2 billion" new participants in this cognitive surplus-using culture. Access to the internet, and to the other social software platforms that Shirky fangirls over throughout his book, is limited currently to the wealthiest members of the global community. It is trickling down and becoming more widely disseminated, but as it stands, this kind of participatory opportunity is far from universal. It is heavily concentrated in the West. The emphasis on engaging the "2 billion" leaves me wondering what the other 5 billion people on the planet are supposed to do, how they are supposed to engage with the global community. Or are they? Shirky is quiet on the subject of there being merit to truly broadening and universalizing participation.
Overall, I felt the book lacked the strong call to action I was anticipating. Instead, it closes with some tips on how to make a successful social media site, I guess with the hope that the reader wants to make one that matches up with Shirky's hierarchy of values. I felt like I got a good bit of the what and the how, and the who (including the who not), but I never really gathered the why - why is cognitive surplus good? Why is social software good? Ultimately, I did not feel that the book gives a good sense of why connection is good for humanity in the abstract.
Seeing as this is by far the longest review I've ever written, though, I think it's safe to say that there is a lot of value in this book as fodder for deep thought and discussion about the aspects of modern creative collaboration. So cheers to Shirky for that!
For a much better book that addresses some of the same content as Cognitive Surplus, try Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal.