22. THE VALUE OF FREE - Why Are We So Distrustful of Getting Something For Nothing?

For many years I was a member of an improv comedy troupe who performed once a month in the upstairs room of a pub in Birmingham’s city centre. Our show was, at the time, probably one of the best offerings of long-form improvised comedy the city had to offer, but because we were just starting out and experimenting with formats we decided to make the show completely free. Other free shows in the city often used the gimmick of calling themselves “free”, but then passing round a hat (or bucket) afterwards and guilting the audience into offering up “whatever you think the show was worth” (my favourite being the host who encouraged audiences to “fold your contribution” into the hat, suggesting that “whatever you think the show was worth” ought not be anything less than something in note form), but we decided not to do that. Free would mean free at our show, no strings attached. None of us were seeking to earn a living through our show - it was a hobby for the majority of us, and for those of us for whom it wasn’t, they had other paying gigs which covered the bills.

At some point, however, as we got more assured in our performances and settled on a working format, the discussion would occasionally come back to the question of whether we should start charging the audience. And it wasn’t just us who raised this issue. After the show many people would come up to us and encouragingly say: “that was great - you should charge money for it”.

For me, this only encouraged me to want to keep it free even more, as I became fascinated by the concept that the group of us, who knew we could afford to keep it free, and had never intended to make money from the venture in the first place, began to entertain the idea that maybe we should start charging an entrance fee just because charging an entrance fee was what is done.

Many arguments were put forth, many of them excellent:

1. It devalues art by not charging; implying that art should be free rather than paid for like anything else of recognised value.

2. We are technically exploiting ourselves to work for free, even spending money on things like parking and transport to the venue, and should ensure at least our expenses are covered or else we are surely being ripped off?

3. It undermines the marketplace for other similar shows in the city. If we do ours for free, then how can others justify charging for theirs?

4. Because of the marketplace for other similar shows in the city it makes us look less good than we are by offering ours for free. If others can charge £5 entry for their show, the only reason we don’t must be because we aren’t very good and know we’re not worth it.

But as compelling as some of these arguments were, and as much as I would like to live in a world where artists can earn a living from their work (and would hate to think of myself as being exploited by my own hand), I couldn’t help think this was something different. While we certainly could charge for our show and make a valid case for our own artistic merit through the box office recognition each £5 ticket would bring, and it would be nice to leave Birmingham afterwards with more money in my pocket than when I came out instead of less…couldn’t we also think of the show as a gift to the people of Birmingham? A lovely free gift once a month that asked for nothing in return and provided a couple of hours of pleasure in the middle of a busy working week for anyone who wanted to see it? Gifts, by definition, usually tend to be things we could charge people money for but willingly choose not to. And every time we give a gift we undermine some business’ right to charge a customer for the product they put a price on but which the customer now gets for free. Gifts always come at a price to ourselves, money or time (or both) lost in the service of someone else’s enjoyment, but would I call myself “exploited” just because the value of all the Christmas gifts I buy for friends and family each year total up to several hours of work I have technically now not been paid for as the money went straight into the pockets of other people instead of myself? Maybe the philosopher Robert Nozick would consider this exploitation, but I call it gladly choosing to give up my time and energy for the benefit of others.

But argument number 4 still applies, even if you consider the show a gift. If you buy someone a gift that is too extravagant there are usually questions about how you could afford such a gift, and then the suspicion that the gift’s quality must somehow be lacking in some way for you to be just giving it away. Imagine giving a friend a brand new MacBook for their birthday. It is highly likely they will assume the computer is somehow broken, secondhand, or stolen before they would simply accept that you have spent that much money on them and expect nothing in return. Because when something that good is given away for free, for no reason, it makes no sense in a world where everything has a price and where we have been socialised into a worldview that says money has ultimate value and should be collected, even hoarded, as much as possible. To give something of value away for free is the action of a crazy person. Sensible citizens only part with something of value if it will bring them something of more value in return. At least, that is the story we have been conditioned to tell ourselves.

Consider taxation. We all benefit from taxation, but politicians find it very easy to manipulate us to be against taxes, and especially against raising taxes, when they can point to examples where your hard-earned tax money is spent on something from which you don’t directly benefit. “Welfare cheats” is the classic example. Even though a very tiny amount of public money is “wasted” in this way each year, much is made about it, to the point that draconian measures are now put in place for genuinely deserving welfare recipients to access their much needed money. The idea that we should just see this occasional waste as a further “gift” which is just the price we pay to ensure the necessary gift of help is available to all who need it so that no-one need worry about homelessness and starvation if times are hard is not even considered.

Related to not wanting to give people gifts without getting something back, is the corollary: the need to monetise everything we can and ensure every possible potential revenue stream is capitalised on. Because, of course, nothing comes for free, and we need every penny we can find for that feared rainy day when something we need is made unavailable for us unless we can pay the price. It is our responsibility to make sure no potential income owed to us is lost or else we will be kicking ourselves when we need it.

Regularly as a teacher I share resources with colleagues and strangers alike. I have never asked for a fee for these resources despite, again, incredulous peers pointing out how much I could probably make from them via websites like the TES, and even students telling me that the things we give them for free in our classroom should have come to them at a price. And they are all half right. The resources are good, and worthy of a high price if sold at their true value. They are certainly better, at GCSE and A-level, than any of the textbooks I have ever seen available for the AQA Religious Studies and Philosophy courses. But they are wrong to say I ought to charge for them. Because, again, I made them only to help my students. They are a gift to facilitate their learning. And if occasionally colleagues from other schools need help, I am glad to be able to help them too and offer them up a gift as support. As there is no economic need to charge for them (I am already paid for my job of being a teacher), the only reason I would put a price on these resources is because I could. But as I just as equally could not, I have chosen not to. Because sometimes it’s nice just to give people a gift.

Again though - the gift is treated with suspicion. Students ignore our advice that they do not need to buy a textbook or revision guide, that the resources we give them are good enough. The fact that they are free, and we are not selling them to other students at other schools, sends a signal that they can’t be as good as we say they are. Every year, those who use our free resources do well, while those who spend their money on inferior expensive products don’t. The apparent value of something that is free overshadowing its real value.

And I worry that the same thing might be happening with this blog.

When I launched it, it was with the idealistic notion that philosophy students across the country, if not the whole world, would be wanting to get in touch and write those burning articles they had been thinking about for years but had not yet had any place to publish. My own students had expressed such sentiments over the years, and I too, as a student, always wanted to break free of the shackles on dull teaching syllabi and exam-board hoop jumping. I would have been all over a blog like Philosophy Unleashed had it existed during my own school days, and I have shared the site to colleagues around the country and repeatedly encouraged students and teachers alike to get involved.

Some have. The brave and bold from around the country. Many from my own school, where I promote the blog at the end of every email and encourage all classes to read it. But so far there has not been the bombardment of contributions I had expected. Nor the bombardment of fellow teachers telling me that they have recommended the site to their students. In fact, very few fellow teachers seem to have gotten on board with Philosophy Unleashed despite over 300 unique visitors checking out the blog over 700 times since its launch in September. People are certainly reading the blog, all around the world, but for the most part it still feels like my blog rather than a tool being used by philosophy students and teachers across the UK and beyond.

And I began to wonder if this was another case of the value of “free” not being seen.

Either the blog is free, in which case, it’s not good enough to write for, or it’s some sort of for-profit enterprise, in which case it’s a trap somehow, designed to get marketing information of some form out of that valuable “philosophy student or teacher” demographic.

I certainly think some people may think I profit in some way from this website. I don’t. In fact, it costs me money as I pay for the domain and the site each month from Squarespace, and have intentionally not opted for commercial sponsorship or advertising spots. It also costs me time, as I’m producing a new post once a week to ensure there is something new to read every Monday if outside submissions don’t come in (and even when they do, there is usually a delay due to drafts and edits taking a bit of time, so most weeks its essential to have a back up). I literally benefit in no way from the success of this site other than it contributing to student enjoyment of philosophy as a discipline. Hopefully that keeps them wanting to study the subject, which, in my own school, may benefit me by maintaining A-level numbers, but that benefit is not solely available to me - it is a benefit to every philosophy teacher in the country. And the students themselves will benefit too, as if a blog like this makes them enjoy philosophy then there is something wonderful in their lives that they enjoy: philosophy!

Because this blog was intended as, you guessed it, a gift. A gift to the philosophy community to protect ourselves from the blinkered myopia of examination and create a space where unfettered and unchained philosophical thinking can take place. The stuff that excited us all in the first place when we first began applying philosophy to our lives.

Of course, writing philosophy articles takes time, even when they are intentionally not deeply academic affairs. Students, raised in a culture where nothing comes for free, don’t want to invest the time it takes to write an essay into an essay for which there is no personal profit either. For, while I make no profit from this website, I offer none either. This is not a philosophy competition. There is no cash prize for the best essay at the end of the year, or chance to study at a reduced rate in a fancy institution. I am not paying writers for their work (yet again - more artistic exploitation!) I am simply offering them a place to publish their interesting ideas. And the criteria is, specifically, that they are ideas on topics which are not part of their current course of study. So the essay won’t even get you that top grade you seek at A-level or GCSE.

What I am asking for, is the contribution of a gift. A gift of your ideas, to share with the world just for the sake of sharing. To start a conversation, to make people think. For free. The way you do when you’re sitting around a coffee shop or pub, just chatting, and you hit upon something brilliant. The way you do in the philosophy classroom before the teacher tells you they need to move on and get back to the syllabus. The way we do between friends, when we are not seeking to monetise and profit, but only to share and receive gifts from each other.

And make no mistake - these free gifts have significant value. The students who have already contributed have said great, important things, and in several cases really helped other students facing the same problems. In the case of one essay, even helping some readers save their lives. Other students have read these articles and simply thought about something in a different way than they had thought about it before. They have done philosophy, and done it not because they had to, but because they wanted to. Perhaps the greatest gift of all.

So for any of you who read the blog regularly but are looking for the catch, rest assured, I am not planning on making this blog a money-making venture. The plan is not to make it massively popular and then drop a paywall on it, or sell advertising space to parasitical companies looking to find new consumers in our captive student audience. The plan is what it always was: to provide a gift, for free, for those of us who think philosophy should be something more than schools and universities allow it to be. Because gifts are cool. Because gifts subvert the general social attitude towards demanding something in return. Because gifts remind us that you don’t always have to put a price on things, and that those prices which do exist are prices of our own creation, which can always be rejected and changed with a simple change of thought.

That said, I realised this week that it wasn’t particularly clear to have the section to submit ideas and offers to write for the blog called “contribute to philosophy unleashed” as, in this highly monetised age, the urge to “contribute” tends to mean “pay a donation” (the online equivalence of promising free and then passing round a hat). So I have changed it, for clarity, to “Write for Philosophy Unleashed” in the hope that there are more of you out there wanting to share your gifts but who, previously, were worried there was no such thing as a free lunch and assumed anything asking you to “contribute” was somehow asking for a payment. I’m not, and I want to hear from you.

Gifts are a privilege: not everyone can afford to give them and not everything should be a gift. But if you can give something as a gift, why not break the cycle of quid pro quo and do so? That advice, is another gift I give to you. Nowadays I’m in a different improv troupe, and we perform weekly instead of monthly. The shows are great, and at the end we even offer anyone in the audience who wants to the opportunity to join us on stage and perform for free. The shows, like this blog, also remain completely free.

AUTHOR: D.MCKEE