Which is better - to think about food, or to eat food?
17 Dec. 2007
Dan Cohen had an interesting blog post a few days back that I've only just bothered to read. Of course it turned out to be quite fascinating, which just goes to show that I should keep on top of these things better.
At any rate, the post in question is on digitization and repatriation. Specifically, he asks if digital objects, photos, etc. are so finely detailed that they convey as much information as the original object, should museums give back stolen artifacts and keep digital versions of the object for scholars to look at?
The interesting offshoot of this, at least as far as I am concerned, is the question posted by a reader "Which is more valuable - information about an object, or the object itself?" Scholars, naturally, would tend to say the information. Without information, an object is simply a pretty trinket. But when you imbue it with meaning, when you investigate it and understand it, then it obtains actual value.
Although I actually agree with this on a very gut level, as both a fake-scholar and...well...okay, fine an information fetishist, are you happy?....I also differ very deeply from many academics I've met in suspecting that this is a personal obsession and not, in fact, some sort of fundamental truth. I also suspect that this is likely at the core of the public's distrust and turn from academia (another topic of personal fascination and dread). The public, on the whole, doesn't care about ideas. They care about what they can do with those ideas. Ideas, knowledge, information for their own sake are simply wanking. But put those things to good use, and then we have something to subsist on.
So which is better? Cooking up a wonderful and delicious meal and being content in the fact that it's there and we know it's good? Or actually enjoying the fruits of our labor by eating the damn thing?