In the Myth of the Ant Queen, Johnson explores the relationship between states of chaos and harmony. Johnson provides an account of her experience with Gordon when investigating social insect colonies (ants). In the text, she essentially adds to Davidson’s argument supporting a collaborative effort in the construction of civilization. She begins the text by briefly referencing the term “queen”. In our society, we utilize this term to distinguish an individual from the crowd. The title grants the owner authority and dominion over her people. However, it is simply a term that we humans used to facilitate the construction of hierarchical social systems. In the ant civilization, although there is a “queen” she is “not an authority figure” (Johnson 194). The queen serves the sole purpose of carrying on the survival of the colony. The ant society works rather autonomously and is far too large for the queen to really have any authority. It is around this point where Johnson steps away from the insect society and parallels it to something larger (in this case, human society). She does so by paralleling the ‘ant metropolis’ to Central park, the midden to a garbage dump, and the pile of dust (carcasses) to a cemetery. In doing so we are able to find a bridge that joins these two distinct worlds.
Johnson furthers this comparison by describing the history of Manchester. In this case, it was focused more on the order of disorder. The town grew so uncontrollably yet ironically had some underlying method to its madness.
“They are patterns of human movement and decision making that have been etched into the texture of city blocks, patterns that are then fed back to the Manchester residents themselves” (Johnson 199)
The collection of all the individuals that inhabited the city is what shaped the city. In turn, the city also shaped the people that lived in it. This would end up giving the city a somewhat autonomous nature, similar to how the boisterous ant society functioned without strict commands from a queen.
Johnson’s text helps further support the possibility that crowdsourcing or collaboration can trump credentialing in efficiency by providing multiple accounts of how societies (or even a game of billiards) can be vastly altered simply due to numbers. The text helps to emphasize just how ‘open’ crowdsourcing can be. A quote that I felt really exemplified the connection between the two texts is : “A city is a kind of pattern-amplifying machine : its neighborhoods are a way of measuring and expressing the repeated behavior of larger collectivities - capturing information about group behavior, and sharing that information with the group” (Johnson 199). The quick growth of Manchester itself is a testament that a strict unidirectional plan is not required for a city to grow and develop. The varied personalities and cultures of the individuals that inhabit the city are enough to shift its course as it gradually expands each day.
The quote you mention, "A city is a kind of pattern-amplifying machine [...] - capturing information about group behavior, and sharing that information with the group" (Johnson 199) can be analyzed in the context of Lethem. In the same way that Manchester is a series of repeated communities and inherent patterns, a text is a series of repeated ideas and motifs. Much like how this information is shared with the individuals of the city subconsciously, an author draws from the shared information in the commons. As you mention, the lack of direction allowed for varied personalities and cultures to manifest themselves. If we continue this parallel with Lethem, then perhaps one can conclude that by removing copyright and restrictions on information, the textual commons would be able develop a personality and culture.
ReplyDeleteLethem would also agree that copyright and intellectual property is merely a social construct to give some groups dominion over certain information. However, like how an ant queen is not an authority figure but rather important to the survival of the colony, Lethem seems to subscribe to Thomas Jefferson's view that a small and temporary copyright is a necessary evil to promote the arts.