Wednesday, April 2, 2003

Is the United States a Microsoft or a Lunus Torvalds? American is a country that defines itself by its creative capability, its ability to produce opportunity and possibility. This drive to create new worlds is why the entrepreneur is today's westward explorer, the iconic individual at the heart of the American psyche. And it's why this war has taken on such an particular American resonance. The believe in the right to create a new order in Iraq is firmly rooted in who we are. From whisperings it appears that the intellectual class in the Middle East (see Thomas Friedmann's column in today's NYT) is quietly intrigued by what this new order could mean for the entire Middle East. But will we get that this new world is not entirely ours to create? Will we define manifest destiny by a new code or the old code? At what point will we recognize that the "consumer" of this creation has to take over from the "producer" and shape it in a way that we can't currently imagine? I don't think an analogy to the open source movement is too far off. Will the United States in the end act like Microsoft or Linus Torvalds? 1:20:18 PM     comment []

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