I was listening to something on the radio and it got me thinking. A century ago, people started being recognised as people. It took a while and we haven’t completed that task, but with the beginnings of the shift of enfranchisement to include others besides powerful men, we started down a track which has led to here. Where is here? Well, here is where we have people with (almost) equal rights. I say (almost) because there are still portions of various societies that still view members of that society as lesser members. Not as good as the powerful members. People having fewer rights, fewer options, fewer possibilities to grow.
Concurrently, we had this burgeoning of ideas. The last century has seen a flurry of intellectual growth, ideation, information. Are these two linked? I’m not enough of a historian to determine that. But, and this is my point, with the increase of both ‘rights’ and ‘ideas’ and a decrease in ‘control’ of people, there seems to have been a shift to the control of ideas.
How has this happened? How is it that the powerful people of a century ago have shifted their control of ‘others’ to the control of ‘ideas’? We no longer condone the ‘ownership of people’ but we now have this notion of ‘ownership of ideas’ and frankly, if I try to own an idea, the only way I can control it is by not sharing. If I share an idea, it’s not just mine, it’s ours. I think this means I believe that ‘intellectual property’ is a crock!
And that I gladly share with you.