The thing is - it doesn't seem like a 'debate'. Birkerts still cries and even admits he'd rather live in the 19th century.
"I have very nineteenth-century, romantic views of the self and what it can accomplish and be. I don't have a computer. I work on a typewriter. I don't do e-mail. It's enough for me to deal with mail. Mail itself almost feels like too much." -Birkerts
So, OK, live in the 19th century. I don't really care. But if you've made that choice, please, QUIT crying about becoming marginal.
And the rest of us should just ignore them. It's what they know to do. They ignore the present consistently and cry about it at the same time. They, who would have such a tiny literature and have such a rigid understanding of 'the book' that they can't see one if it hasn't got ink all over it, deserve the prison they're busy making for themselves. It's NOT a debate. The debate was twenty years ago. Ink lost.
We face increasing exponential demand for food, oil, and minerals worldwide and technology that can't catch up with it. Given that, it is possible that production for oil and various necessities (including food and minerals) will peak, leading to higher costs and more shortages.
The U.S. has only around 5 percent of the world's population but must consume up to 25 percent of the world's oil. Now, countries like China, India, and a growing middle class worldwide want the same.
Given this situation, a return to a nineteenth-century existence may happen in the near future.
Check out this lecture and many other sites for more details:
The thing is - it doesn't seem like a 'debate'. Birkerts still cries and even admits he'd rather live in the 19th century.
ReplyDelete"I have very nineteenth-century, romantic views of the self and what it can accomplish and be. I don't have a computer. I work on a typewriter. I don't do e-mail. It's enough for me to deal with mail. Mail itself almost feels like too much." -Birkerts
So, OK, live in the 19th century. I don't really care. But if you've made that choice, please, QUIT crying about becoming marginal.
And the rest of us should just ignore them. It's what they know to do. They ignore the present consistently and cry about it at the same time. They, who would have such a tiny literature and have such a rigid understanding of 'the book' that they can't see one if it hasn't got ink all over it, deserve the prison they're busy making for themselves. It's NOT a debate. The debate was twenty years ago. Ink lost.
-blue
We face increasing exponential demand for food, oil, and minerals worldwide and technology that can't catch up with it. Given that, it is possible that production for oil and various necessities (including food and minerals) will peak, leading to higher costs and more shortages.
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. has only around 5 percent of the world's population but must consume up to 25 percent of the world's oil. Now, countries like China, India, and a growing middle class worldwide want the same.
Given this situation, a return to a nineteenth-century existence may happen in the near future.
Check out this lecture and many other sites for more details:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY