Stewart Brand Wants to Revive Extinct Species (Interview w/ Kevin Kelly)

If you reflect on a creator's willingness to work outside of polite society, the web seems so very static and conservative now. I am not necessarily comparing it to some bygone days where hackers were cowboys, because I only recently discovered the web - I'm comparing it to the potential of any community.

Impressionist painters in the 1870's struck out in defiance of the academic community. Sculpture followed twenty or so years on. Architecture made equally bold moves counter to the norm and expectations. All of these are conservative arts now for the most part. One of the most popular trends now in architecture is the International Style of 80 years ago.

Every so often a new field erupts that is democratic and allows the novitiate to explore and express (and to be honest about the human condition and not play politics to preserve one's rank). The web had that potential, but I don't see it being fulfilled.

[EDIT] It is interesting to find this piece on Brand, who I know best through his How Buildings Learn, which is one of the best works I've read on man's place in the built environment: he studies the historical records of structures that have survived man's use, and identified the general attributes that contribute to those successes. It is an empirical view of architecture and by extension, planning. It is a conservative view, in that it values the preservation of things past, but it is a liberal view in that it seeks the freedom of the building and tenant.