OF ELECTRONIC ENCYCLOPEDIAS AND THE CULTURE OF FORGETTING
OF ELECTRONIC ENCYCLOPEDIAS AND THE CULTURE OF FORGETTING

Summary/Abstract: Electronic memory is a contemporary development of the time-honoured ambition to accommodate within a single database all information (≠ knowledge) pertinent to humankind. Upgraded from a metaphor for, to an equivalent for, human memory - the individual and collective retention of the detailed past – the electronic encyclopedia has produced epiphenomena of a practical as well as a philosophical kind, in education as in society at large. Such is the electronic encyclopedia – elenc for short – with an input not selfgenerated but requiring to be introduced by human agency. One representative electronic encyclopedia in general use today (here given the appellation WOW) makes a practice of accepting all submissions irrespective of initial accuracy; it thus hosts “a large body of unacademic content”. The expectation, not always fulfilled, is that later amendments will adjust mistakes of fact, misguided opinions, defamatory statements, and so on. No article is ‘screened’ by an independent eye, though there are certain specific policies on inclusion and exclusion, a particularly interesting one being the concept of ‘notability’. Discipline is maintained by an Arbitration Committee; the Community of users itself; and voluntary ancillaries. The organization’s actual staff are strikingly few. In day-to-day use the electronic encyclopedia is open to the charge that it encourages plagiarism and other uncritical repetition of material that may or may not be accurate. Its coverage of topics is not strictly proportionate to the needs of all potential users, but is biased in favour of sciences and preoccupations of the contemporary world, and in particular the Internet culture. This is a defect inherent in its technological history, and one impossible to correct either systemically or by starting afresh. The result is that the electronic encyclopedia effectively tailors ‘memory’, a fragile thing at best, for present and future users: it promotes “a culture of forgetting”.

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