You Can't Polish a Pumpkin:Scattered Speculations on the Development of Information Ethics

摘要

This essay argues that information ethics is at once both impossible and imperative. It is suggested that the commodification of information imme-diately forecloses on the possibility of information ethics. Ultimately, it is argued, that information ethics needs to expand to encompass a radical —preferably revolutionary —contestation of the commodity form of informa-tion itself. Any version of information ethics that fails to take seriously the distinctly capitalist history and use of information risks becoming a quotidian mechanism for the reconstitution of exploitation throughout everyday life. The essay makes some brief observations about "critical" movements within Library and Information Science to clarify this point.