analysis because delineating what is familiar and what is unfamiliar, or moving the line such that what was unfamiliar becomes familiar, is a rhetorical act of expertise. It is to make something known or knowable, to invent something in such a way that it is intelligible. It is to explain something, such as the movements of stars or the binary code of a computer program, so that we commoners understand: to make known and to give. This is a process of invention designed both to demystify and to maintain enough mystery that the expert remains necessary for the common good; for without some measure of mystery, the commoners would not need explanation from an authority figure. The mystery that exists at the periphery of the commons, like a horizon against which the commons may know itself, is significant not only for the commoners’ experience of everyday life but also for the identification and appointment of authority figures, the function of which is to make things known.
THE CULTURAL COMMONS
Reflecting on the vast concept of the cultural commons, it is helpful to begin with something concrete. In 1963 the Walt Disney Corporation released an animated film titled The Sword in the Stone, loosely based on the legend of King Arthur and the sword Excalibur. The film depicts a young boy, a wise old wizard with a pet owl, and a critical moment in which the boy rises to a challenge to fulfill his destiny. In short, the film is generic. Its narrative is familiar even to those who have not seen it. With this film as a starting point, my introduction of the cultural commons could go in various directions. For example, I might treat the film as a specific fixation of a perennial idea and discuss the implications for commercial copyright; this discussion would address how long Disney’s exclusive privileges ought to last, the value of the public domain, and where art and commerce meet for the good of society. These matters, which reappear throughout the book, are not the place to begin with the cultural commons as such, particularly when the issue at stake is expertise. Instead, my consideration of what constitutes the cultural commons and where they might be found begins with the notion of inspiration. Despite the unsettling sentimentality of the word, the metaphor itself of in-spiration helps me make my point. The cultural commons are, among other things, in the air. That is precisely why questions of property sometimes get awkwardly stuck. The Sword in the Stone is indeed copyrighted material, but it is also an iteration of a deeply rooted and pervasive myth. The myth of a noble hero, a fated journey, and the powerful object that only the hero can wield—sometimes it is a sword, but it might just as well be a ring (Frodo Baggins), a lamp (Aladdin), or a wand (Harry Potter)—is remade again and again. It hovers in the space of inspiration. Thus, it is misleading to speak of the cultural commons primarily as a question of who owns what.19
The most readily graspable and widely used definition of the cultural commons relies on analogy with the natural commons, comparing air and land to traditions, customs, and inventions. This way of thinking, which preserves the notion of inspiration and its centrality in cultural life, indicates how the natural and the cultural commons both consist of commoners, resources, and networks or sites. Or, as I explained with reference to Bollier, “Commons = resources + community + the rules and norms for managing them.”20 On each side of the analogy are resources that belong to no one in particular but are vital to all and must be governed sustainably if they are to remain common. Otherwise they become the private possessions of whoever is in charge. Ownership thus enters the conversation not solely via property, including the relatively young concept of intellectual property, but as a structure of governance. Governance and property together make it possible to think of enclosures as applicable to both the natural and cultural commons. As I explained in the preceding section, the natural commons globally have been and continue to be enclosed, which is to say privatized. This is the case not only for land but also increasingly for scientific discoveries, species (including plants with pharmaceutical properties), and biological materials (including components of the human genome). In terms of the cultural commons, the much-cited argument of legal scholar James Boyle is that presently a “second enclosure movement” is under way. With respect to the distribution of cultural content, Boyle argues that intangible resources like ideas and facts are being enclosed as the English moors once were: “Things that were formerly thought of as common property, or as ‘uncommodifiable,’ or outside the market altogether, are being covered with new, or newly extended, property rights.”21 In Boyle’s view, the second enclosure movement is driven by a “deep pessimism about the possibility of managing resources that are either commonly owned or owned by no one.”22 Like Ostrom, Boyle is convinced that those who see privatization as the only way to manage common pool resources are cynical, and that cynicism limits opportunities to develop commons governance.23
When scholars and activists analogize the cultural and natural commons, the distinguishing feature that is most often mentioned is “nonrivalrous” resources. These are resources that are not diminished by use. They are difficult to contain, or “nonexcludable,” but there is no urgent need to contain them because they are not at risk of depletion. As Hardin’s pasture example illustrates, natural commons are finite, at least when they are not managed sustainably; where one sheep has eaten all the grass, less grass remains for others. If I fish all the cod out of the North Atlantic, precious little remains for future fishermen. By contrast, if I teach a song that I have composed to a friend, my song is not depleted. This comparison of fish and songs is, of course, complicated by market value, which I address in later chapters. For now, the point is that comparisons between the natural and cultural commons often hinge on the issue of what is finite and valuable. As Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, who compare “the air, the water, the fruits of the soil, and all nature’s bounty” with “knowledges, languages, codes, information, affects,” write, “When I share an idea or image with you, my capacity to think with it is not lessened; on the contrary, our exchange of ideas and images increases my capacities.”24 This is the leitmotif of the open access movement and, in a larger historical context, the Enlightenment. At stake in nonrivalry is whether a resource multiplies and migrates from its point of origin or stagnates and dies. Most commentaries on the cultural commons, especially those that encourage resistance against “the second enclosure,” emphasize that ideas thrive when they are accessible to all, when commoners breathe the open air of inspiration, as previously suggested.
It is remarkable, however, that alongside the concept of the cultural commons as nonrivalrous is the recurring, albeit suppressed, suggestion that the cultural commons may be threatened from within, indeed by the commoners themselves. From the outside, enclosures threaten natural and cultural commons insofar as they turn shared resources into privately owned commodities. Commoners cannot gain access to what has been bought up by a private entity, whether it is land or copyrighted music. Further, natural commons are threatened by excessive use because they are rivalrous. When the fish are gone, they’re gone for good. But in discourses about the nonrivalrous cultural commons and the generative effect of sharing ideas, there is often an implied urgency to organize and protect. Not everyone is thrilled about the idea of the cultural commons as a repository from whence everyone may draw and into which anyone may make a deposit. The concern is quality control, and the risk that the cultural commons may, as Hardt and Negri fear, be “drained.”25 Marxist historian David Harvey cautions that while the cultural commons “cannot be destroyed through use, it can be degraded and banalized through excessive abuse.”26 What, one wonders, does he mean by abuse? What interests are served by the argument, which extends far beyond Harvey, that even in the cultural commons there are, or should be, standards and order, or by the argument that even in the cultural commons not “everything goes”; rather, someone is in charge? Framing this line of inquiry in terms of expertise allows me in later chapters to analyze how value and authority (or authorship) are managed via a logic of gifting, the gifting logos.
In rhetorical theory, the cultural commons enter through the concept of commonplaces. Most simply, we may think of the aforementioned stuff of the cultural commons—the ideas, artifacts, inventions, and knowledges—as necessary equipment for any persuasive effort. The cultural commons as Boyle defines them, in other words, supply rhetors with strategies for making arguments. Classically conceived, commonplaces, or koinoi topoi, are general resources for discovery and creativity, wherein rhetors formulate messages with regard to audiences’
