what is LexPunk and, to a lesser extent, why do I embrace the title and try to guide my work through the ethos?
I was first introduced to the [X]punk concept around 14 years ago with the EduPunkmovement. This was back when I was an academic librarian and starting to really see the possibilities of technology and also the problems caused by corporate control of legal information and EdTech tools. Friends and colleagues in the library community began to brand ourselves with the LibPunk moniker and used the punk ethos to guide our work.
So what is that ethos?
As the Wikipedia article for EduPunk summarizes…
- Reaction against commercialization
- Do-it-yourself attitude
- Thinking and learning for yourself
And a contemporaneous Guardian article said:
“A new instructional style that is defiantly student-centered, resourceful, teacher- or community-created rather than corporate-sourced, and underwritten by a progressive political stance.”Personally, I always really liked Dan Sinker’s vision of the general punk ethos:
“[Punk] is about looking at the world around you and asking, ‘Why are things as fucked up as they are?’” he wrote. “And then it’s about looking inwards at yourself and asking, “Why aren’t I doing anything about this?”
I transferred my work energies from information science and education to legal services, but it’s still all knowledge work and facing the same pressures and providing the same opportunities as the others. Also, things are definitely fucked up.
So LexPunk it is.
I don’t know if I can define it fully, but I would say that living the LexPunk life means trying to embody the following principles:
- Seeing the problems in the legal world and taking responsibility for being part of the solution
- Understanding that the solution should be based in community and user needs and not serve as means to the end of protecting corporate or existing power establishment interests
- Embracing a maker culture mindset and feeling empowered to experiment and create solutions yourself instead of waiting for someone to make it for you
Around 2011 or 12, I gave a guest lecture to some Reinvent Law students at MSU and debuted my LexPunk idea. Through the years I’ve had reserved LexPunk URLs and tried to figure out what to do to expand this idea. I briefly considered trademarking it, but that didn’t seem very punk rock of me.
Someone asked me the difference between punk and hackers and if I had to find any daylight between them, I’d say Hackers are more concerned with “how” and punk is more concerned with “why” but they both care about how and why.
Maybe now that I’m footless and fancy free (read: recently laid off) and also secure enough in my professional and personal life to not worry about the consequences (read: I’m old and and tired and two clicks away from yelling “TOWANDA” at people at random intervals. Plus I always have the sheep farm thing) I can devote more time to re-embracing the LexPunk life and recruiting people to the movement.
If I, a middle aged librarian living in rural Indiana can be a punk, what’s stopping you?