Kaufman links e-book trend to bookburning, Nazis

[Steve Jordan]

Author Alan Kaufman in a recent essay rails against the fall of books and the rise of e-books, believing a soulless takeover is being orchestrated around him. He sees something much more sinister in the e-book than most of us:

The book is fast becoming the despised Jew of our culture. Der Jude is now Der Book. Hi-tech propogandists tell us that the book is a tree-murdering, space-devouring, inferior form of technology; that society would simply be better-off altogether if we euthanized it even as we begin to carry around, like good little Aryans, whole libraries in our pockets, downloaded on the Uber-Kindle.

I can understand a sentimentality towards printed books. But Kaufman's words sound like those of a bitter old man seeking to intentionally frighten people, based on his own lack of appreciation of progress, and an apparent inability to separate the pulp from the ideas carried inside them.