UberNoggin

All of the hubbub over Andrew Keen’s new book The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing our Culture has had me thinking. First, of course, I think he’s dead wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Have I mentioned that he’s wrong? Don’t take my word for it. Go listen to this great podcast interview with him to get a great synopsis of his arguments and commence your own screaming meemee.

Flashback to the weekend. In my head I’m wrestling the idea of the expert vs. the amateur as knowledge creator as I take my five year-old triplets to see . Here’s the basic story:

**warning: spoiler**

Remy the rat is infatuated with food and specifically with a famous (though deceased) French chef, Gusteau, who spouts “Anyone can cook!” in all of his cooking shows and in his famous cook book. Remy winds up in Paris, led by the ghost of Gusteau and to Gusteau’s famous restaurant now run  by a tiny tyrant chef named Skinner who fights tooth and nail to prevent anyone from taking over his kitchen as he plots to sell out Gusteau’s name to a line of frozen dinners. By befriending and puppeteering a trash boy named Linguini, in the restaurant’s kitchen, Remy proves himself to be a naturally gifted chef. Meanwhile, as the restaurant enjoys its success, the evil food critic, Anton Ego (fitting name…you’ll see) whose scathing review of Gusteau’s restaurant may have caused his death,  comes back to write another review. Remy and his army of rats man the kitchen after all of the humans have left due to finding out that Linguini can’t really cook and that a rat has really been the one to revitalize the failing restaurant. They serve Ego ratatouille, a “peasant dish” and he is transported to his childhood happiness, gives the restaurant an amazing review, and becomes a supporter of Remy. Meanwhile the restaurant is closed due to health code violations when the rats are discovered and all end up happily running their own restaurant with Ego as the contented owner and no longer a critic.

Somewhere in there is a love story, some fuss about Linguini’s lineage, and some other small side stories but you get the gist.

Here’s the point. Remy the rat is a perfect metaphor for the non-expert Web 2.0 knowledge maker. He has no credentials and must prove himself through his actual knowledge and application of knowledge rather than through credentials. Ego, who represents the established expert and seemingly feeds off of taking other experts down a notch, is transformed by a common product done very well and created by someone who would never be accepted by the establishment. Gusteau, the expert who leaves the ivory tower to encourage the common person, facilitates Remy’s entrance into the accepted creators category. Skinner, the expert of the kitchen, is left out in the dark, unemployed, and shamed due to his inability to accept that a non-expert could create something of worth.

What’s the moral of the story? Even without being an acknowledged expert on a topic, if you work hard to express your ideas in clever ways, you too can be respected for what you know. The fairy tale parts are Ego’s change and Skinner’s downfall. Will folks like Keen ever become secure enough to accept that there are people without his credentials who know something worthwhile?  Will the so called “gatekeepers” of knowledge, such as Britannica, ever learn to leverage and value the contributions of common knowledge?

Post a Comment