Idealist vs. Realist
I just ended a very short membership in a Yahoo group set up to combat ebook theft (aka ebook piracy.) There were too many naysayers and self-proclaimed realists.
Ordinarily, I’m a realistic person. I’m a Capricorn, a logical thinker and well grounded in the “real world.” But there are times when I think we all need a bit more idealism. As evidenced by my writing, being realistic doesn’t mean you have to ignore the wish that things could be different, better.
It’s a good thing the Women Suffrage Movement didn’t listen to realists. I’m sure they were told hundreds of times to “be realistic.” They were told, “It just won’t happen. You’ll never get a majority.”
The same goes for the Equal Rights supporters. How many times were they told it was a hopeless cause? How many people told them to (in effect) get real?
In the group, there was post after post about possible ideas to stop the pirates. Law enforcement and encrypting ebooks were discussed. Each idea was shot down by one or more all-knowing experts that have been in the industry in one capacity or another for years. For instance, arguments were posted about how the encryption could be broken. Well, of course it can. The lock on my front door can be picked/broken, too. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t lock my front door, I argued. Another argument- Encryption deters some consumers from buying that ebook because they may have had trouble before. My answer to that is maybe it does, but if most ebooks are encrypted, the consumer will learn to expect it.
The final blow to my patience was a post about being realistic. This person listed facts and figures about how many independent presses there are in the U.S. And (in a nutshell) how we’d be spitting into the wind to even try to get a majority of them to encrypt their ebooks.
The person posting this was a leader, a former president of an organization of and for ebook authors.
To all those people who say you can’t eat an elephant, I say you can. One bite at a time. It may take months or years, but it can be done.
The sad truth? With the leaders of an organization already admitting defeat, there is no hope of winning. That’s the bottom line. That’s being realistic.
Even though I am primarily a realist, there are times when I wish I had the strength, perseverance, and time to prove that every now and then idealists win.
Nita
