The Democratization of Knowledge

The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz (2014) not only inspired me to be a better human, in the sense of making this world a better place, but also brought to my attention the democratization of knowledge - something for which Aaron Swartz was undoubtedly an advocate. I had not heard of the idea of the democratization of knowledge until recently when I did a presentation on Wikipedia. The democratization of knowledge "is the acquisition and spread of knowledge amongst the common people, not just privileged elites such as clergy and academics" (Wikipedia). This idea is something that many people have fought for recently, most notably Aaron Swartz, who ultimately fought until the end of his life after being criminally investigated and charged with an absurd 13-count indictment for taking actions to aid the democratization of knowledge. The Internet's Own Boy documents Aaron's fight in this movement and the unfair treatment he received for trying to remove certain barriers in said movement.

This film, while inspiring, made me angry more than anything. I have been known to say that we, as in my generation, are lucky to have all the information we could want at the ease of our fingertips. We've all said it, and it is true to a certain extent. We have more information at our fingertips because of people like Aaron Swartz and Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia), but it is only because they have made generous strides in contributing to the democratization of knowledge. We certainly do not have all the free knowledge that we could have - something that this film did a wonderful job of pointing out to me. It is interesting to me that Swartz recognized a need for the democratization of knowledge at such an early age, creating a Wikipedia of his own before Wikipedia itself was conceived. I believe Swartz was 14 at this point, if I am correct. We are extremely lucky to be blessed with people on this planet that are born with the overwhelming need to help others, some with a seemingly instinctive need to like Swartz.

Ironically, I worked on an assignment just last week and was unable to gain all the information I needed on JSTOR (a program that Swartz himself was familiar with). I was only allowed to see a portion of a several academic sources that I needed for the assignment and was prompted to pay to see the rest of the documents. I just simply do not understand why I would have to pay to read other people's work on the same subject that I am working on - to further develop my knowledge in the subject - especially considering I am a college student. Actually the fact that I am a college student and could not receive the information should not have anything to do with it, as anyone should have access to peer reviewed articles and other academic resources pertaining to the work of Dante Alighieri. I use his work as an example to point out how harmless it would be to allow free access to these types of documents. College is to have the academia, or professionals in their respective subjects, to specifically teach their subjects to paying students in a close environment. That, however, should have no influence on the ownership of the academic material itself that is being studied (Dante's Inferno, for instance) and Swartz would agree that anyone should have access to this information whether one is a paying student or not. The democratization of knowledge relies on the idea that we should be able to access information to learn things ourselves without having to rely on paying someone to teach us. The Aaron Swartz film made me realize that yes, we are living in a time where some of us have access to more information at our fingertips than ever before, but that we do not have access to all of the information that we ideally should. It inspired me to fight for the democratization of knowledge and taught me that one person truly can make a difference.