On rarity

0/5

Rex Sorgatz doesn't like that he can no longer prove his coolness by owning rare objects.

“Rare” is such an quizzical descriptor, a blatant contradiction of the very nature of digital culture. Rarity describes a state of scarcity, and as we enter a proto-post-scarcity economy, digital stuff defies such shortages.

Things are no longer rare; they are either popular or unpopular.

Rarity itself has become very rare.

Is it? Or is this surprising claim only an accident of the multiple senses of "rarity"?

1/5

First, I must vent my spleen: Rex Sorgatz mis-uses numbers for rhetorical effect. The case of the Beatles' "Happy birthday" demonstrates a general error running throughout the piece. Sorgatz complains, "That sonic obscurity has been heard 2.3 million times." His claim is that 2.3 million is a high number. Is it? 2.3 million is a small number in the context of the rest of the Beatles' recording career. 2.3 million is a small number in the context of other Beatles songs on YouTube: one arbitrarily selected upload of Yellow Submarine has over three times as many views. And 2.3 million is a small number in the context of Sorgatz's song choice, "Happy Birthday," which may be the most popularly performed song in English. By contrast, Sorgatz gives no context for the numbers he commonly cites.

My first point is: A number itself is neither high nor low, rare or common. Numbers can lend a false sense of precision to un-contextualized claims that, ultimately, amount to arguments from authority.

2/5

Second, Sorgatz's argument sneakily defines its terms in a very lousy way. His challenge is restricted to digital objects:

Can you think of a media object — anything that can be digitally reproduced — that is rare in our times? 

This challenge leaves out the entire archives of "Rare Books" at my university and everywhere. Of course material objects can still be rare. In fact, the challenge is rigged from the start. It begins with the set of objects that are "digitally reproduced," meaning that there are at least two digital copies. And following from the first complaint, I can define any number as "big" or "small," so I hereby declare two copies (implicit in the definition of "digitally reproduced") to be "not rare." So the challenge amounts to a bare assertion: "Can you think of a X object--anything that does X--that is not X?"

3/5

Third, the entire discussion so far implies that "rare" is a function of "not rare"--in other words, that which is not rare is common, popular, etc.: this may not be so. It may be that rarity is a relation, not a function. Graham Priest explains,

 I speak of the difference between a relation and a function. A relation is something that relates a certain kind of object to some number of others (zero, one, two, etc). A function, on the other hand, is a special kind of relation that links each such object to exactly one thing. Suppose we are talking about people. Mother of and father of are functions, because every person has exactly one (biological) mother and exactly one father. But son of and daughter of are relations, because parents might have any number of sons and daughters. Functions give a unique output; relations can give any number of outputs.

What I'm proposing is that Sorgatz implicitly defines "rare" as a function of "common" or "popular." Ie, All that which is not common is rare, and vice-versa. Evidently, there's a number line posted in Sorgatz's office, and the side closer to 0 is marked "rare" and the side closer to 2.3 million is marked "common." But I propose instead that one object can be rare in relation to other things.

4/5

Fourth, "rare" means "rare" in rhetorical context. "Rare" means different things depending on the speaker, audience, time, place, and purpose. Beatles albums are not rare on the internet, but they are rare in solitary confinement cells. I propose that we consider claims of "rarity" in relation to each component of the rhetorical context. Something may be rare in relation to:

• the speaker
• the audience
• the rhetorical purpose
• the time
• the place

And so on. In the rhetorical relations of rarity, Rex Sorgatz is complaining that the changing times (the age of the internet) have changed the relative quality of rarity. This may be true of certain objects, with certain people, etc., but not others.

5/5

Fifth and finally, Rex Sorgatz underestimates a corollary to the availability of digital media. If you have one available book, you would look at that one book every time you look at any book. That one book would not be rare in the sense that you would encounter it every time. As the number of available media approaches infinity, the proportion constituted by a single source approaches zero.

In the age of customized internet search, Rex Sorgatz must first articulate a search term before he can find any of his supposedly rare objects. He has to know what he wants before he can find it. His desires, his aesthetics pre-determine those things that he can find. You could have searched for any music; why did you search for oenophilic yodel-rap? And now that you have, you can connect with all of the commentors on the yodel-rap video, for whom yodel-rap is not rare. In fact, you are joined by a pre-existing interest that has already been expressed by your search terms.