[lbo-talk] media

[Mark Bennett]

I absolutely have this experience.  I can't really read anything for content
on-screen.  I have to print everything out. This is particularly wasteful
when conducting legal research, because I have to print out every case and
statute to really get a grip on the issues they address. Joanna's points are
well-taken: digital text has no context, even when it is a passage in a
mighty tome.  When you are handling a book, you have an three-dimensional
orientation with the object.  There is a solidity to the process that it
utterly lacking in the digital form, at least for me.  I find it nearly
impossible to read any of the texts available from Project Gutenberg, even
those I know well.  I'll be the last person on Earth to buy a Kindle.

That said, I don't see that "The Second Coming" is a reactionary poem.
Perhaps Yeats intended it to be, but it has drifted away from any authorial
intent and is a universal lament now, appropriate to many situations.
Anyone pondering the enervation of the American Left when compared with the
fury of the Tea Baggers would easily conclude that "the best lack all
conviction, while the worst/are filled with passionate intensity."

On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 7:48 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


> The other day, when I was trying to recall Harold Bloom's argument about
> why Yeats's "The Second Coming" is a reactionary poem, Michael Pollak
> helpfully scanned and posted the passage. I tried reading it and felt very
> frustrated - it was all passing me by. I wondered if my brain was
> atrophying, or if I'd become a philistine, or something else horrific. Just
> before he posted it, though, I'd ordered a copy of the book, which just
> arrived today. I was just reading the passage and found it thoroughly
> comprehensible and stimulating - it reminded me of how I was seduced by
> Bloom's influence and still sorta remain under his spell all these years
> later.
>
> So I'm wondering - what is it about the screen vs. the page? Is it just
> that I'm from a generation raised on print, habituated to the idea that
> serious writing is ink on paper and stuff on the screen is basically just
> news or gossip, totally in-the-moment stuff? Or is it something about the
> media themselves? Anyone else have this experience?
>
> Doug
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