-- MichaelDignan - 05 Feb 2009

We are continually asked this question but I am increasingly unsure of what can be done with "the idea." Is the question merely asking what kind of understanding can be achieved about the idea itself? Or is it asking what can actually be done with it, manifest in the world at large? To implement an idea in the real world requires coming to a conclusion, however final or temporary, that some solution to a problem is better than another. To come to a conclusion about what to implement, you have to "choose" in some sense, right? I know that the word choice has been frowned upon as of late, but it seems to me that at some level it has to be used, at least insofar as it describes conscious actions undertaken to influence numerous unconscious ones, through policy decisions for example.

So when Prof. Moglen asks the question, "What can we do with this idea?" I don't know how to respond. It seems to invite the drawing of conclusions. Except that whenever a conclusion is drawn, instead of discussing the merits of the conclusion, any consequent discussion is dismissed as doing "violence with ideas" rather than thinking about the "usefulness of ideas." This prompts many people to raise their hand and then say, "So X. So what?"

I understand the need to not get wrapped up in debate about the rightness of conclusions and can certainly sympathize with the idea of thinking about how ideas can be useful. I am just somewhat frustrated by the question, "What can we do with this idea?" if we aren't supposed to try and draw conclusions based on it.