I made a couple of unrelated observations recently, neither of which was worth sharing on its own, but it occurs to me that I can group them under the title "Cultural Consistency" and make reporting them worthwhile.

The first related to a discussion on Slashdot about a European Space Agency plan to have humans on mars within three decades. (Seems like the ESA isn't planning on falsifying my prediction.) One commenter opined (in part) that the human race could achieve some awesome things, if only we could unite behind those goals: "Imagine if everyone on earth was able to combine their resources and technology with no political, religious, or cultural boundries."

I was immediately reminded of two cultural references. The first is John Lennon's Imagine, in which he invites us to imagine a culturally united world, devoid of religion and politics. I don't believe that there can be such a thing as a world devoid of religion and politics unless we also eliminate all the people. Religion exists in any situation involving one or more people, and politics exists in any situation involving two or more. I can only assume that Lennon wanted a world free of other people's religion and politics. The second reference was to the Tower of Babel, recounted in the first nine verses of Genesis 11. The Tower of Babel incident suggests that a united people are powerful indeed: "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." [Genesis 11:6 (NIV)] With those in mind, I responded as follows.

Imagine there's no heaven, etc. No doubt you are right that a united humanity could achieve some impressive feats, be it for good or ill. One question, though: if there are to be no political, religious, or cultural boundaries, then whose political, religious, or cultural agenda is being followed?

— The Famous Brett Watson, Slashdot comment, 2004-02-04

Imagine (and that which echoes its sentiment) has always struck me as fundamentally flawed in this manner. I grant that unity is strength, and that at least some of the touchy-feely "brotherhood of man" stuff is right, but believe it or not, there's plenty of scope for wrong in there too, and when people get united behind wrong goals, Bad Things happen. Ultimately, I have the strong impression that Lennon was thinking along the lines of, "why can't people just be reasonable and see that my philosophy of life (or something very close to it) is obviously right?" A certain free software luminary (the identification of whom is left as an exercise for the reader) gives me a similar impression.

At the very least, Lennon had a noble dream for the betterment of mankind, but operated under the delusion that it was religiously and politically neutral. The "betterment of mankind" is such a noble goal that nobody could reasonably speak against it, but one's opinion on what constitutes the betterment of mankind is a subjective matter, shaped by one's own political and religious value system. An Atheistic Humanist's vision of a better world probably diverges significantly from that of a Christian Evangelist, or a Fundamentalist Muslim.

In short, think of it this way: who would you trust to dictate political, religious, and social agendas to you? If you're anything like me, the answer is, "nobody — I'll make up my own mind about these things, thanks." This isn't because I consider myself a perfect judge of that kind of thing, but rather because there are no perfect judges to which to delegate the matter. And that being so, I don't want to impose my imperfect political, religious, and social agendas on anyone, any more than I want the agendas of others imposed on me. I think that mild disunity is a better alternative than unity misdirected. If humans were perfect moral beings, then unity would follow as a by-product, but we aren't perfect, and unity without perfection is not a noble goal.

And so to the other instance of "cultural consistency". In this case, it's a matter of consistency over time, rather than consistency between individuals. LawMeme posted a note regarding the publication of a paper entitled Does Copyright Piracy Pay? The Effects of U.S. International Copyright Laws on the Market for Books, 1790-1920, which suggests that the USA benefited from their refusal to recognise foreign copyrights between 1790 and 1891. The editor posting the article comments, "Particularly poignant is the argument by many developing nations that they cannot get necessary medicines without looser IP restrictions; they argue, justifiably I think, that they should be allowed to benefit from IP piracy to the same extent that the developed countries did." To this, I had the following comment.

That sounds like an argument based on a principle of fairness. I don't expect it would hold much weight with the corporate and political leaders that get to say what goes. It's way too easy to ignore the antics of one's ancestors, especially when money is at stake. Still, I'll bear it in mind, next time some American CEO calls copyright violation "theft", that the USA was (by that definition) a nation of remorseless thieves in the century spanning 1790 to 1890+.

— The Famous Brett Watson, LawMeme comment (posted anonymously), 2004-02-04

It strikes me that the charitable thing to do is accuse the USA (as a nation) of cultural inconsistency with regards to copyright: inconsistency in the sense that they hold a double standard, or are eager to ignore their own past sins. The uncharitable thing to do is to accuse them of consistency: consistently claiming the high moral ground on whichever course of action is economically beneficial to them (i.e. consistent selfishness). Either way, I don't see how to present it in a flattering light.