Cory Doctorow’s Metacrap: An Intriguing yet Insufficient Hypothesis

Typically, when I read someone’s work, I look for legitimacy and validation of a given argument. My interpretation of Metacrap is that author Cory Doctorow shares this evaluation idiosyncrasy.

Despite the similar assessment styles however, our conclusions as to the truthiness of why there will never be a “meta-utopia” are quite dissimilar. Moreover, Doctorow’s tongue-in-cheek-yet-cynical diatribe on human nature reminds me in many of ways of Thomas Hobbs’s interpretation of human nature, as each focuses on the self-centered and lazy aspects of human beings. I do agree that humans have the capacity to be indolent and selfish; however, I disagree that these traits dominate the collective unconscious.

Though each of the “seven straw-men” Doctorow “torches” offers a legitimate argument as to why searching the Internet will never be an utopian experience, the meta-utopia challenge is far more complex than overcoming egocentrism, stupidity and falsehood.

For example, perhaps the reason many fail to fill in subject lines (something I, too, find annoying) has as much to do with distraction due to the high demands of modern multi-tasking (i.e. information overload) as much, if not more, than it does with “meta-laziness.”

Perhaps the lack of literate language usage has as much, or more, to do with the complexity and fluidity of the English language as it does with oversight and stupidity – not to mention the influence of a universal linguistic melting pot.

One “torch” I disagree with completely is Doctorow’s suggestion that people are lousy self-observers. It has been my experience that most people are well aware of their strengths and weaknesses. The primary exceptions to this rule being of course those with abnormal psychological disorders (e.g. narcissism, histrionics, etc.)

Disparate opinions aside, I do agree with Doctorow in the respect that there truly is no one correct way to categorize various items and ideas. Ultimately, it seems, metadata is innately idiosyncratic and heavily reliant upon context.

Or, as Doctorow so eloquently states:

“Reasonable people can disagree forever on how to describe something. Arguably, your Self is the collection of associations and descriptors you ascribe to ideas. Requiring everyone to use the same vocabulary to describe their material denudes the cognitive landscape, enforces homogeneity in ideas” (2001)

In this, and in the suggestion that there will indeed never be a Meta-utopia, Doctorow and I agree completely.