<CPOV> Universal Encyclopedic Vision : E-lightenment & Bee-nightenment

[Jon Awbrey]

CPOVers,

I like this idea of looking at the "Universal Encyclopedic Vision" (UEV)
in its own right, the up-sides and the upside-down-sides, so I hope no one
will mind if I detach a thread devoted to just that.

Joseph Reagle wrote:
|
| On Monday, May 24, 2010, Maja van der Velden wrote:
||
|| Where does this 'saving the world' idea come from?
|| What does it mean in the context of Wikipedia?
|| Anyone knows?
|
| This is a theme, what I call the "universal encyclopedic vision",
| that continues from the early twentieth century.  I discuss this
| in my forthcoming book, but here's a few notable quotes:
|
| H. G. Wells felt that "Encyclopaedic enterprise has not kept pace
| with material progress" but when the "modern facilities of transport,
| radio, [and] photographic reproduction" were embraced the creation of
| a permanent world encyclopedia would be "a way to world peace":
| "Quietly and sanely this new encyclopaedia will, not so much
| overcome these archaic discords, as deprive them, steadily
| but imperceptibly, of their present reality."
| \acite{Wells1937wbi}
|
| Suzanne Briet captured this sentiment when she wrote of her library's
| reading room of three hundred patrons:  "peaceful with their books.
| Peace through books." \acites[Suzanne Briet, *Entre Aisne et Meuse
| ... et au delà*, Les cahiers ardennais 22. (Charleville-Mezières:
| Société de Ecrivains Ardennais, 1976), 87, quoted in [5]{Maack2004las}
|
| "To the men, women, and children of the world who, by increasing their
| knowledge of the earth and its people, seek to understand each other's
| problems and through this understanding strive for a community of nations
| living in peace, the *Encyclopaedia Britannica* dedicates this volume."
| \acite[Ted Pappas citing G. Donald Hudson, Walter Yust, eds.,
| *Encyclopaedia Britannica World Atlas* (Chicago: Britannica, 1956),
|
| Kevin Kelly writing of Ted Nelson:
|
| "Wearing a ballpoint pen on a string around his neck, he [Nelso] told me --
| way too earnestly for a bar at 4 o'clock in the afternoon -- about his scheme
| for organizing all the knowledge of humanity.  Salvation lay in cutting up
| 3 x 5 cards, of which he had plenty.... He spoke of "transclusion" and
| "intertwingularity" as he described the grand utopian benefits of his
| embedded structure. It was going to save the world from stupidity."
| \acite{Kelly2005waw}

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