Nicholas Carr cites a blog post of Clay Shirky's:
Reverence for literary classics such as War and Peace and In Search of Time Lost is a "side effect of living in an environment of impoverished access," before today's digital abundance.
(Edward Tenner, Wilson Quarterly, Autumn 2010, v.34,#4, p.92.)
Is it so?
Is it a provocative pose of Shirky's?
In addition to all the other things the Internet is doing, Carr says, it may be helping to create the post-literary mindset.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Give that man a medal!
D. R. Tucker, the conservative author and former climate skeptic, changed his mind publicly!
How many people do you know who ever change their minds? especially on important political issues on which they have taken a public stand? Zero, but really, almost zero, because now we have Tucker, who in "Confessions of a Climate Convert" published on FrumForum on April 19, 2011, and in an interview in Slate, recanted.
It started he says, when he read Morris P. Fiorina's book Disconnect: The Breakdown in Representation in American Politics (2009). It continued when he read the irrefutable data in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). http://www.ipcc.ch/publications
"Holy shit, this is for real," was his reaction.
He didn't keep it to himself either, but took the honorable course and changed course.
Give the man credit!
How many people do you know who ever change their minds? especially on important political issues on which they have taken a public stand? Zero, but really, almost zero, because now we have Tucker, who in "Confessions of a Climate Convert" published on FrumForum on April 19, 2011, and in an interview in Slate, recanted.
It started he says, when he read Morris P. Fiorina's book Disconnect: The Breakdown in Representation in American Politics (2009). It continued when he read the irrefutable data in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). http://www.ipcc.ch/publications
"Holy shit, this is for real," was his reaction.
He didn't keep it to himself either, but took the honorable course and changed course.
Give the man credit!
Friday, July 15, 2011
Inconvenient Facts
"FACTS, HOWEVER, HAVE OFTEN SHOWN THEMSELVES RELUCTANT OF ACCEPTANCE...."
from Grebanier, The Truth About Shylock. Random House, 1962, p.83.
This is a wonderfully understated.
And in how many different contexts it applies -- choose any context to find examples -- and I'm not even talking about the implications of bald facts or the endless chatter of: is it really so? can we measure it six ways? is it true in all times and all places? ....
from Grebanier, The Truth About Shylock. Random House, 1962, p.83.
This is a wonderfully understated.
And in how many different contexts it applies -- choose any context to find examples -- and I'm not even talking about the implications of bald facts or the endless chatter of: is it really so? can we measure it six ways? is it true in all times and all places? ....
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