If all ideas have to be bought, then you have an intellectually regressive system that will assure you have a highly knowledgeable elite and an ignorant mass.
Interpretation
The quote critiques a system where knowledge is commodified, leading to inequality in intellectual access.
John Perry Barlow's quote warns against a society where ideas and knowledge are treated as commodities that must be purchased. This creates a fundamental divide between a knowledgeable elite who can afford to buy information and a mass of people who remain ignorant due to lack of access. The quote highlights the dangers of intellectual elitism and stresses the importance of free access to knowledge for a truly enlightened society.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about education reform and the need for free access to information.
With the development of the Internet...we are in the middle of the most transforming technological event since the capture of fire. I used to think that it was just the biggest thing since Gutenberg, but now I think you have to go back farther.
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How many times have we seen reality celebrities fall from grace - often through no fault of their own - and then go on a show like 'Celebrity Big Brother' and say, 'I want to show the public a different side of me.' And I'm screaming at the telly going, 'This is not therapy. This is voyeurism!'
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I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
The profoundest affinities are those most readily felt.
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