Control and the Days of Hot Type
November 16, 2009
Short honk: The electronically adept Guardian (UK newspaper) ran “The Case for Books by Robert Darnton. Dinah Birch praises Robert Darnton, a passionate defender of the printed word.” This is a book review laced with the Guardian’s nostalgia for a time when newspapers were the curators of intelligent discourse. Now you are reading the thoughts of an addled goose. Quack. At the foot of the review was a passage of interest to me; to wit:
In his final essay, Darnton [book author] remarks that “reading remains mysterious”, despite the burgeoning debates surrounding the production, preservation and interpretation of texts. The practice of reading shifts in every generation. No commercial or political process has yet succeeded in controlling its evolution and nothing suggests that its unruly energies are likely to diminish in a digital world.
Yep, mystery, understanding, and control. Oh, how we long for the good old, analogue days.
Stephen Arnold, November 16, 2009
The Government Printing Office will receive an email that says, “Mr. Arnold was not paid to write this brief article insinuating that the Guardian wants to be a Luddite”, a word that appears frequently in its articles about technology.
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