Agora and Marketplace
Please reference:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agora
related: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_(Roman)
related: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piazza
related: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza
related: Public Square
— check that last link for synonyms: city square, civic center, commons, open market, French place, platz, praça, public square, town green, or Maidan…
like the Midan Tahrir — you might have heard of Tahrir Square. Seems something happened there last month.
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Open spaces have, from time immemorial, had to serve two purposes: commerce, and communication.
When two people meet, they can exchange goods. Depends on how good the price it is, though; if I don’t want your proffered wares (or if you ask too much in exchange) then we’re not going to make a deal.
However, when two people meet: they always exchange ideas. Even if you just sit there and refuse to talk, refuse to make eye contact even — well, I’ve certainly learned something about you, if nothing else. What you chose to share combined with the questions you refuse to answer — I can learn quite a bit about you no matter what other commerce or exchange takes place.
This is the Public Square, this is the Commons. We interact, we share [or not], we buy and sell [or not], and we negotiate. We debate. We conflict. We talk.
Compare the Agora to the Marketplace:
Since the earliest public spaces naturally attracted commerce, over time the nature of the word changed to the point that commerce became the only meaning of the word: the old senses of ‘public assembly’ and discussion and debate and meetings and comings and goings were subsumed into the larger and more ‘important’ economic aspects.
It’s not uncommon to hear the modern turn of phrase “marketplace of ideas” — which to me is kind of funny as the “markets” and marketplaces have always been about exchange, and these public spaces at their origins were primarily about ideas — meeting and talking.
The internet has become the new Agora: the gathering place.
To think of Digital Distribution and Downloads and eBooks and Amazon as the new market place, and as the internet as merely being a function of these [or just the underlying foundation, like a new public utilty] is myopic at best and willfully ignorant at the very least and downright stupid at worst:
It’s about more than just digital. It’s more than just commerce. The internet is the new conversation, a global conversation, and sure: that means we buy and sell stuff.
But the internet is so much more.
Like the Greek citizen-farmer-solider of Athens back in 500BCE we’re just going to have to work things out by trial and error: the rules and institutions of the internet as they currently stand are well-thought-out and they seem to address the needs of today—and seem to do so well enough—but the potential of the Agora was so much more, and so is the internet’s.
After 2500 years, we have two ultimate expressions of the Agora: the shopping mall, and the United Nations
in another 2500 years, what will the internet look like, and what will that mean for civilization?
