I just read another collection of impotent mewlings from yet another clueless blogger on mandated open access. And I have finally figured out why nobody but me is angry about these policies. People simply don’t have an intellectual framework where to place these developments. They sincerely don’t know whether these policies are good or bad.
So here is a way to figure that out. Do you believe that the state should issue laws mandating what food you eat, how and when you reproduce, what books you should read, in which cities you should open a branch of your company, etc? Or do you believe that you should be trusted to figure all this out on your own?
If you think you can figure all of this out on your own, why can’t you accept the possibility that academics are capable of figuring out how to disseminate their own research? Especially since they’ve been managing this task for as long as academic pursuits have existed?
Humiliated, beaten down people won’t produce any ideas or create any intellectual output. Let’s trust academics to make these routine, trivial decisions on their own.
Clarissa's Blog 
Actually I find being an academic in Africa that my personal material interests are almost completely the opposite of academics in the US.
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Everybody ‘s right to their property comes into conflict with somebody else ‘s interests. That’s the nature of property. My right to dispose of my money violates everybody else ‘s need to access it. But I hope nobody is asking me to put my money, body, property, etc into public ownership.
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What you don’t like socialism. 😎
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Yes, shockingly, I’m not a huge fan. 🙂
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This is not an argument that’s liable to work in the US where people traditionally mistrust ‘experts’. (though with the increase of credentialism in recent decades things might be changing).
A lot gets said about the immigrant background of most Americans but not enough gets said about the settler/pioneer mentality that shaped a lot of American mores and habits just as much.
On the frontier credentials don’t mean much, what you can demonstrate that you can do is much more important.
Also, you don’t necessarily have to have your credentials in order to get started. I plunged right into a thing or two I wasn’t remotely ‘qualified’ for just to see if I could.
What’s needed is an argument that appeals to the DIY frontier ethic. Open access is closing off the frontiers of knowledge and keeping Daniel Boone downtown instead of forging the way that others can follow, something like that.
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I’m hoping precisely for the frontier mentality to kick in and respect individual choice.
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