Prephase

This book is neither a strictly scientific investigation nor is it purely fictional nor political nor autobiographical nor... nor... nor... It is what it is. If I wanted badly to label this book, I would call it the diary of a naive philosopher. A diary of what events, you may ask.

Version I, Somewhat Real
It all started when the Russian researcher Dmitry Sklyarov was arrested by the FBI in 2002 on the grounds of violating the DMCA, after giving a presentation on digital security, using as an example a flaw in Adobe e-book encryption. The software development community around the US was outraged. Programmers staged street protests and started on-line discussions. My son participated in the protest in front of the Adobe headquarters and this got me involved in the discussions. These grew to encompass all of the knowledge based on my cultural studies. Thus this book came into being, piece-by-piece.
A naive philosopher here is a teacher who discusses issues related to exclusive rights with five first-graders. The teacher gets inspired by the discussions, writes down his own thoughts, runs into doubts and new ideas, brings them back to the kids, gets into discussions and writes again. And so it goes. The book explores different aspects of culture, its relationship to human beings and to the human condition, to civilization in general and to economics in particular.

Version II, Somewhat Fictitious

It all started accidentally. I was talking once to colleagues and happened to mention an educational experiment I had participated in, in the past. It was about the School Of The Dialogue Of Cultures (SDC), the theory of which has been developed in cooperative effort between philosophers, scientists, and educators in Ukraine and Russia. One major element of the educational process in that school is dialogue. That translates to at least two aspects of the educational process. Firstly, a subject is presented to the students not as the firm and absolute truth but as a source of questions. Secondly, a teacher does not teach in the traditional manner but organizes an environment for dialogue and exploration of the subject between the students. These generic ideas may sound pretty casual for the contemporary ear, but when I continued with specifics the theory and the practice of the SDC appeared quite unusual, effective, and interesting to my interlocutors. They were allured and intrigued by stories of the experiments; for instance, the story of first graders enthusiastically debating with Plato. This conversation with my colleagues started a chain of events, which ended up in another experiment of a rather small scale, in that case. It was conducted with five first graders during their after-school activities in a Bay Area elementary school. The children dreamed to become famous writers, that is why they and their parents enthusiastically agreed to participate. Why? Because of the subject we agreed to work on. That was “exclusive rights.” The experiment, in turn, resulted in this diary, where my thoughts alternate with shorthand records of students’ discussions.

Version III, Somewhat Poetic

This book is written many times
At once.
That is,
A scrupulous reader
Will easily extract
Every idea
Many times
From chaotic dialogues, that
Five wonder kids conducted
And
From deliberations
I have done,
As well.
What do I want?
It’s to remind you
What you already know
About life.
I also want to ask
Why don’t we put
Two and two together
?!.

And so, on to our dialogues with the first graders!