Letters to the Editor
-
Book Reviews
I post book reviews on-line on a 'blog.' Does that make me a blogo-fascist?
Or is my crime avoiding getting hired by the New Republic?
Or perhaps reviewing books that newspapers and magazines don't review? Or Lee Siegel (whoever he is...) doesn't review?
The guilt is just overwhelming. Apparently I'm part of the new illiteracy!
-
Life on the Screen
I'm reading Life on the Screen by Sherry Turkle right now and although it was published a little over 10 years ago, it's still worth reading. For better or for worse, she explains, computers and the technology associated with them have changed how we behave, online and offline and how we create identity (or identities) for ourselves. Siegel might really be on to something.
-
Siegel is a deeply unhappy man
I've met Lee a number of times and he has always struck me as a deeply unhappy person. No matter what we spoke of, and the topics ranged far and wide, his consensus was that everything was ruined. He is like the person you knew in college who was always pissed about something, usually that his favorite unknown band had been discovered and couldn't bear that fact that his once-secret knowledge was now shared by lesser mortals.
New York City? It was better in the 70s (when crime was rampant, the city was bankrupt and graffiti covered every inch of public space) because it was more authentic. A particular neighborhood? It got ruined once the gourmet grocery moved in. A bottle of wine? Last year's vintage was better. And on and on ad infinitum.
Of course, it's a culture critic's job to search for quality and authenticity, but it doesn't take much skill to just rail against everything. He's constantly disappointed because he compares everything to a perfect past that never existed.
I think Siegel is most upset that he doesn't live in Vienna in the 1880s and he can't just walk into a coffeehouse and start quoting Schopenhauer to the approving nods of the patrons. That and the fact that with the possible exception of his wife and child, nobody really cares what Lee Siegel thinks.
-
Thank God for the blogosphere
The blogosphere, for all its excesses (and yes, it does have excesses), has proven itself to be critically important to our democracy. Without blogs, Judith Miller would never have been held accountable for her abominable WMD reporting in the New York Times that helped grease the rails for the Bush Administration in its run-up to the Iraq War; we would never have been told of Trent Lott's thinly-veiled racist comments at Strom Thurmond's birthday party; most of us would not have realized the extent of the administration's venality in firing U.S. attorneys who refused to "play ball" by pursuing bogus prosecutions based upon purely political considerations;
and we would not be kept apprised of the almost-daily falsehoods emanating from Washington.
Blogs are an essential corrective to our timid, power-worshipping establishment press. During the 1990s, Rush Limbaugh got a free pass as he spread lies and unfounded rumors about Bill and Hillary Clinton and Democrats every day on the radio. Today, thanks to blogs, there are resources for those who actually care about the truth to fact-check the lies that come from the far right and that go unchallenged by the mainstream media. As long as we have people like John King, Joe Klein, Candy Crowley and Richard Cohen purporting to tell us what is happening in the world (to say nothing of Fox "News" and its ilk), blogs will be invaluable to the preservation of our freedoms.
Eric Meyer
-
siegel
Don't know about Siegel since as far as I know I have never read a word of his (by the way, I have been a "contributing writer" for both the L.A. Times and New York Times Book Reviews--does this make me a cultural maven?).
But anybody who seriously thinks there is "no room to think" any more is taking internet and public discourse way too seriously. Nobody has to read that stuff, you know. If you want to silence all the voices in your head, shut off the tv and the computer and refuse to answer the phone. It aint that hard.
Why do so many people assume we have no control over our own thought processes, but must slavishly follow whatever appears in the media? People who do that must be pretty weak-willed.
I like being able to talk to people, and I like the reach of our various media, but come on--surely any adult realizes all this backandforth is just chatter, and we have the responsibility for our own minds and beings?
-
The Revolution Will Not Be Blogged
I agree with Yossarian about the merits of the blogosphere. In many ways, it is the "true" independent press. One problem is that it lacks the necessary resources to actually cover news stories, etc. It is usually a running commentary on the mainstream culture, not a generator of culture itself. This is a huge distinction, and one that is often overlooked by people declaring the death of mainstream media, etc. Where would the bloggers be without the New York Times to take a piss on?
Here's the deal: the internet is only possible as a part of the massive infrastructure of our corporate and government controlled society. It needs fossil fuels for electricity and connected cable or satellites to carry its messages. It is not, and will never truly be, outside the mainstream. No revolution or radical positive change will take place on-line, because the entire on-line universe can be dismantled and turned off very easily. Large telecommunications companies don't usually side with revolutionaries or socialists. They exist to make profits and hold onto power.
That said, I think the internet is wonderful tool, but one that is not being looked at in its proper perspective. I recently read Dostoyevsky's "The Demons," and in it, the revolutionaries make use of one of the characters, Shatov, because he has access to a hidden printing press. Now that printing press could still get the word out, without the need of a huge infrastructure, just a couple of guys in a dirty basement somewhere. When the lights go out, there's still the sun, and there are still books on the shelf, full of wisdom, dialogue, and strange imaginings. They can be easily transported, filled with messages, and difficult as hell to track. I find it funny that Amazon named it's new book replacement machine "Kindle" as in "kindling" as in starting a fire. We should question what that fire is meant to consume and what it will leave us with.