Page:Culture.vs.Copyright 01.pdf/49

Alpha: No, I do not! It’s all different! In a movie, you see what you see. In a book, you can’t see it but have to imagine all of the heroes, and landscape, and action. Everyone imagines it in their own way! It’s like everyone is reading a different book although we are all reading the same Adventures of Tom Sawyer. And when you listen to music, you don’t even know whether you think of it the same way the composer does. How can you say it is all the same?
Teacher: If I ask now, why do we read books, watch movies, listen to music, will your answers be different?
Alpha: . . . Well, that’s not what I meant. I don’t know why we do all those things. My point was that they are different, that’s all.
Beta: Thus, you don’t know any more?
Alpha: What do you mean?
Delta: Beta is reminding you that you had the answer about books, remember?
Alpha: I think that books, and movies, and music . . .
Kappa: And fashions?
Gamma: Hold it!
Alpha: . . . do the same thing to us. They teach us, but in different ways. And everyone learns what they see or can see or . . .
Delta: Or want to see?
Beta: Well, say, you learn from Tom Sawyer how to defend your girl, and the other guy learns to smoke, and someone concludes that Indians are bad guys because there was a bad Indian Joe there. . . . How do we really know that books teach us?
Alpha: I told you, everyone learns what they see.
Delta: Listen, Alpha, if books are supposed to be used for learning, then are writers teachers?
Alpha: So?
Delta: Is that a yes or a no?
Alpha: Come on, we’re not in a courtroom.
Delta: Why don’t you answer?
Kappa: OK, OK. Suppose they are to teach us, what is your point?
Gamma: Delta is just taking up what Beta is getting at. If authors are teachers, but everyone learns different things, then what do authors teach? Did I get it right, guys?
Beta: Well yes, you’re even getting ahead of me now.