Not Quite a Gift Culture

The classroom is not a true gift culture economy. As Eric Raymond, perhaps the most significant proponent of "Open Source' describes:

Gift cultures are adaptations not to scarcity but to abundance. They arise in populations that do not have significant material-scarcity problems with survival goods. We can observe gift cultures in action among aboriginal cultures living in ecozones with mild climates and abundant food. We can also observe them in certain strata of our own society, especially in show business and among the very wealthy. Abundance makes command relationships difficult to sustain and exchange relationships an almost pointless game. In gift cultures, social status is determined not by what you control but by what you give away. (Raymond, par 7)

Raymond explains that the gift culture is a substitute for other forms of economies. In places where survival doesn't hinge on accumulation, social status hinges on giving. While the Sharing Cultures Project course might resemble a gift culture – as might discussion sections of many literature classes – I'm not convinced that the gift culture model applies to the classroom:

1. Institutional Restrictions: As those of us who try to decenter our classrooms and tamper with the role of authority therein know, the ability to remove the “command hierarchy” economy from the classroom butts up against institutional requirements like grading and the conditioning that years of external motivation has created. Because the gift culture requires an environment of abundance, we would need an “All A” classroom to foster one. [Note: I'm not categorically opposed to an "All A" classroom, but that's a difficult option at CCC and it's certainly not an option at NMMU]
2. Motivation: Raymond also explains that the reason Open Source projects succeed is because programmers are interested in them. While the experience of Sharing Cultures Project inspires significant interest in the students, it still doesn't operate under the steam of volunteers, as an Open Source project must.

These conclusions lead me to agree with Amy's focus on hospitality (ubuntu) as not only the key to developing the philosophical perspective for our course, but also as a complementary approach to Computer Aided Instruction. Hospitality might even provide a more complex way to produce educational environments that are welcoming and yet open pathways to “bootstrappable” skills as opposed to environments that adopt a stifling and “uncritical drive toward ease” (Dilger par 9).