The Debate Between Google and its Opponents: Heart vs. Logic

At San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club last night, I met up with some old friends and watched a panel debate “The Future of Books.”

One late but critical addition to the speakers list was Dan Clancy, who is the chief engineer at Google Books, and the company’s pointman on the controversial effort by the search giant to scan millions of out of print books and make them available in digital form in what one of the company’s co-founders has called a “Library to Last Forever.”

Clancy projects a large presence. He is a tall man, with wavy, light-colored hair and bushy eyebrows. He’s smart (like everyone at Google), and is an effective spokesman, because he never seems to get defensive under the sometimes withering attacks opponents of the Google Books project regularly launch at him in these kinds of venues.

Last night’s main attacker was Brewster Kahle, co-founder of an idealistic effort to create “universal access to human knowledge” in the form of the Internet Archive. He was relatively restrained during the official program, which was being taped for airing on KQED-FM, the largest local public radio station in these parts.

But afterward, he ripped into Clancy without mercy in a show that would have made far better theater (had it been taped) than what the radio listeners will hear.

This after-show featured Kahle’s passion vs. Clancy’s intellect. It was emotion vs. data, and it struck me that this is one of the central problems of our era. Some of us argue from the heart, some from the head.

I’ll take no position other than to note that at this particular point in our society’s development, logic trumps feeling every single time. And whenever I am in a logical state of mind, that seems fine to me.

The problem is always when my heart gets involved. Another speaker at last night’s panel was Kevin Hunsanger, the owner of the independent Green Apple bookstore on Clement Street.

This has long been one of my family’s favorite places in this city. He described the economics that are relentlessly driving operations like his out of business. We soon won’t have any more indie bookshops left, unless we, as communities of readers, find a way to help them bridge the massive technological gap that is opening up due to disruptive technological advances such as the truly wonderful ones being pursued by Google.

Head + Heart = Truth. I’m not sure, who, if anyone, has posited this before. (If I am the first, will someone please copyright this for me?) Meanwhile, I hope Clancy and his colleagues will help figure out how to save the Green Apples in our communities. After all, they have the resources, the data, and the motivation to do so.

But maybe the key question is: Do they have the heart?