The Grand Inquisitor Meets Free Information

Rick,

Thank you for the critique, as much as for the compliments. Your point is entirely well taken. I’m not directly (or indirectly) addressing a Constitutional or privacy concern in this essay. I just happened to be thinking a lot about ¬The Brothers Karamazov this term and felt there were some interesting textual and philosophical links between the Grand Inquisitor’s tale and free software/free information, which, to be perfectly honest, I just wanted to take this opportunity to explore. There really isn’t a necessary legal point to take from the essay, though I appreciate your valiant attempts to draw one out. If I am making a legal point, it is merely that laws that restrict freedom may not represent an unnatural imposition on man, but perhaps instead reflect his inherent desire to submit--- to give up the terrible burden of freedom. (Note I do not believe, nor I hope, suggest in my essay, that freedom is anything other than a necessary condition for life. I just want to point out that man does not always want it, even though he should hold it above all else).

You asked if my point was “that once people accept the technological and intellectual empowerment made possible through digital distribution of knowledge they might begin to question the authority that seeks to limit and control those means of distribution.” I appreciate the question and the necessity of you posing it, since I didn’t make a direct legal point in the essay, thought I’m not sure it’s quite right. I will say that I think, to the extent my essay makes or suggests a “legal” point, it is that the legal structures in place for distribution and control of knowledge are not necessarily artificial constructs, imposed from “outside.” Men are the fuel for the engine of the law, and it may be man’s desire to pass his freedom (and responsibility) to another (in our case, the owners of culture as defined by the law) that actually maintains a system which may seem unfair. The system couldn’t exist without our submission. You ask also if accepting freedom might lead to a new legal order. I think it might, but my hope was to point out that perhaps the biggest obstacle to freedom is the not the “state” writ large that you discuss, but men themselves. Thank you for pressing me on these points, however; it can be difficult as a writer to signal both the scope and “point” (within a class structure) in such a short essay.

Those things said, I certainly could have written a piece about the relationship of Grand Inquisitor problem to privacy and freedom (though it is clear that this not the piece that I wrote). We easily see the Grand Inquisitor’s rhetoric, for example, in the post-9/11 discourse about balancing freedom and security. How “terrible” freedom seemed to many when it appeared (falsely) to come at the cost of safety, and how easily people gave their freedom up in favor of having “security.”

There is also an interested related Constitutional question, which is the question of what sort of Constitution, exactly, ours is. Does it speak to the better angels of our nature, coming as “Christ” to deliver freedom, unbidden or not? Or does it (can it, should it) reflect instead what also seems to be a part of our nature, that desire to submit, to give up our freedom in favor of other gains? In many senses, the document does both, serving as it does as a tightrope between the rights of the individual and the state. How it this balance should play out may depend in part on how we answer the Grand Inquisitor’s charges.

I hope that was responsive to your concerns. As I said, you are right that this essay itself isn’t directly aimed at the topic or title of the class, but I hope at least that the questions it poses resonate also in the subject matter we’ve discussed in class.

-- DanaDelger - 05 May 2009