Eng. 335-01 Reflection #6.

Eng. 335-01 Reflection #6, Cody Peters.
The “Digital Humanities Manifesto 2.0” raises a few interesting points about the nature of literature and the ever-evolving platform of thought and text. The primary point that interested me was the concept that “print finds itself absorbed into new, multimedia configurations” (pp.2). I have always been interested in the concept of intertextuality: the concept that each work that we as readers produce and consume is connected and influenced by the works that we ourselves have read previously. Everyone knows of this concept on a rudimentary scale; if you interact with something and it reminds you of something you have seen/read/done/or watched in the past, those experiences will influence how you react to your current one. The article goes on to attribute the shift in writing practices and literary mediums as being part of this evolution of previous experiences. It mentions that “the first wave of the digital revolution looked backwards as it moved forwards” (pp. 2), reinforcing the concept that we always relate thing back to our past. However, it takes it a step further. The manifesto urges the reader to “practice digital anarchy” (pp. 4) by ignoring things such as copyright. My issue with this come in a very literal sense; if we all were to practice “digital anarchy”, what would be the point? If whatever I produce can be reproduced, recut, or reduced by anyone at any time, why would I create anything? If we are to remove the usage of copyright, then why stop there? Why not remove the concept of intellectual ownership? Of authorship? Or of individual originality? The level of digital anarchy promoted by the manifesto references that we should “pirate and pervert materials by the likes of Disney” (pp. 4), but how can we draw the line at a large corporation? What about the illustrators or artists that put work and effort into those drawings that are owned by Disney? Are we meant to “pirate and pervert” their work as well? Why or why not? What gives me the right to take someone’s work or image that they have worked on or put effort into, and pervert it a present it as my own? I am obviously taking the concepts of this manifesto an extreme, but this should be done to all manifestos; how else will we learn the downsides or the negatives of any form of movement without taking into consideration the potential extremes of it?