Sometimes the idea of knowledge use feels like being on a raft in the middle of the ocean: water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink! Of course - in this case - we can "drink" in all the water we want (knowledge) but it is not quite capable of sustaining us, because we do not yet have equivalent ways to make knowledge matter with others, unless we have a special "key" from the knowledge landlords of our time, to do so. Essentially, they loan us a key to our abode (paid work) even if we paid the price of a mortgage to obtain the key. In turn, the cost of the (loaned) mortgage makes those who paid it understandably reluctant, to allow the poor to help their own state of affairs with their own knowledge use. While we claim a degree of ownership in our paid capacity, it makes for confusion in our mental capacity (to say the least) when we have to "give the key back". In other words a specific valuation, or even lack of one for knowledge isn't so much the point, as our right to utilize it and categorize it for the mobile real estate it actually is.
However, in spite of my rather sad lead in (arghh!), I want this almost-time-for-the-weekend post to serve as a positive wrap up of sorts, for some recently presented ideas particularly in regard to knowledge based services. So today is more of an emphasis on what can be done, and how in fact what we create could in fact be quite different from the Big Bang way that knowledge dispersal was brought forward in the 20th century. Nothing about such a dramatic change in procedure is automatic of course, and to do such would require a couple of things.
First, it helps to reflect on how societies have previously used knowledge and to what ends. Also, we have a chance to approach such prospects in very different ways from how institutions have previously defined product for us (as indicated in the last post). How might we be interested in recreating knowledge product and utilization for ourselves? For one thing, we want to recapture that now (mostly) missing social, up close and personal part of the process itself, at local levels. The best part of that process is no one has to select limited moments of specific experience as be-all solutions, as institutions have so often tried to do for us. We can have more flexible arrangements for knowledge use which take always changing evolutions of thought patterns and processes into account - both new and old.
Let's back up a bit. Of course it's a given that formal education greatly expanded knowledge use in the twentieth century, until the process recently started to slow in places such as the U.S. Now, knowledge has become like a fertile garden soil which has yet to receive its first planting, in the 21st Century. Still, how communities previously held knowledge depended on how it was utilized in respect to other ongoing activities. When we think of how communities might "hold" skill attributes today, it helps to remember earlier forms of knowledge use spontaneity, when knowledge use was interspersed through all ongoing activities and community members of all ages.
Consider a most basic example: a village where money primarily represented exchanged goods and not time based services. Here, knowledge and skill attributes were held in open ways across populations and were utilized through the community's interaction with its physical environment, both for purposes of family and community goals and activities. Most important, knowledge use was spread amongst all members of society in ways that gave them the security and self respect of economic reciprocity with others. The fact that knowledge was utilized as a commons allowed each community member to gain strength from other community members, even well into one's older years, as remembered by the wisdom of the elders. Only the inadvertent closing off to knowledge use, through exclusionary forms of formal education, put an end to the knowledge of the elders.
No one is suggesting a return to earlier (either literal or non monetary) forms of knowledge use which of course were far more limited! Just the same, specialization of all kinds is now capable of becoming a vital part of local ongoing economic activity in countless areas around the globe. What's more, it would no longer be just the fragile transplant of a school education which is then transplanted yet again to more "fruitful" environments to flower. All the more important, especially, as those limited knowledge gardens have become highly valued, due to their limited nature.
However, a beautiful variation on the earlier wisdom of the elders could be recaptured, were the holders of knowledge confident enough to open up knowledge use to whole populations once again. By so doing, meaningful identities can not only be regained by individuals, but countless towns, cities and villages can once again become strong and vital parts of the global economy. By claiming knowledge use as integral for local forms of wealth creation, greater economic stability on the part of every community becomes possible, and dispersal of knowledge in such democratic ways also assists the preservation of knowledge in perpetuity. Otherwise, knowledge remains desperately fragile whenever populations hold - and use - the most valuable portions of it primarily in large population centers. We have it in our power to create greater economic stability. But most importantly, we have the capacity to create our own demand, and redefine what wealth actually consists of, in the process.
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