//tries to plot how to get sovay started on Homeric epic composition
I don't think it's helpful to conflate the medium with the message as drastically as the author of the article did....It isn't technology that took that understanding from her. It's time; it's the frailty of memory and continuity; it's the gaps between one person and the next, between one generation and the next, between one culture and the next; it's all the things you can never know about someone even if you can read their handwriting for yourself. It's reasonable to grieve that, to be knocked off your feet by the evidence in person. It's not reasonable to blame the internet.
That's really beautifully put. (And yeah, why "should" those books in particular have been a mirror for her specifically? Gahh.)
I mean, I think there are actual Wrong Things about the internet and internet culture, like Facebook setting up its own newsfeed and refusing to act like a publisher or compensate news organizations, and the NYT grabbing reactions-of-the-moment to events off Twitter without permission, and Buzzfeed screencapping Tumblr posts to make 'articles,' and (let's not even get into the wholesale harvesting and sale of personal data without knowledge/permission)...but most of those have to do with compensation, and the worst form of capitalism where wealth is concentrated and clutched to death at the very top. And that's been going on a lot longer than the internet.
I think if anything the internet -- digital technological progress in general -- goes so fast it looks like some of these topics or problems are now qualitatively different, like the author of the article wants to think. But the problems aren't that new, and like moon-custafer has been pointing out the Death of Culture has been blamed on everything from novels to the telegraph. (I remember A LOT of arguments that were happily adapted to the internet being originally made about television. Doubtless they were once made about radio. Hell, I remember people fulminating against Walkmen -- "Isolating! Anti-social! Dangerous, your hearing will suffer/muggers will surprise you!" or even "How can people possibly enjoy movies if they aren't sitting in a beautiful theatre!" and so on.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2018-11-12 08:57 pm (UTC)From://tries to plot how to get sovay started on Homeric epic composition
I don't think it's helpful to conflate the medium with the message as drastically as the author of the article did....It isn't technology that took that understanding from her. It's time; it's the frailty of memory and continuity; it's the gaps between one person and the next, between one generation and the next, between one culture and the next; it's all the things you can never know about someone even if you can read their handwriting for yourself. It's reasonable to grieve that, to be knocked off your feet by the evidence in person. It's not reasonable to blame the internet.
That's really beautifully put. (And yeah, why "should" those books in particular have been a mirror for her specifically? Gahh.)
I mean, I think there are actual Wrong Things about the internet and internet culture, like Facebook setting up its own newsfeed and refusing to act like a publisher or compensate news organizations, and the NYT grabbing reactions-of-the-moment to events off Twitter without permission, and Buzzfeed screencapping Tumblr posts to make 'articles,' and (let's not even get into the wholesale harvesting and sale of personal data without knowledge/permission)...but most of those have to do with compensation, and the worst form of capitalism where wealth is concentrated and clutched to death at the very top. And that's been going on a lot longer than the internet.
I think if anything the internet -- digital technological progress in general -- goes so fast it looks like some of these topics or problems are now qualitatively different, like the author of the article wants to think. But the problems aren't that new, and like moon-custafer has been pointing out the Death of Culture has been blamed on everything from novels to the telegraph. (I remember A LOT of arguments that were happily adapted to the internet being originally made about television. Doubtless they were once made about radio. Hell, I remember people fulminating against Walkmen -- "Isolating! Anti-social! Dangerous, your hearing will suffer/muggers will surprise you!" or even "How can people possibly enjoy movies if they aren't sitting in a beautiful theatre!" and so on.)