[induna]

Alan,

Although I sympathize with many of the sentiments you have expressed vis-a-vis the current cultural/intellectual/ethical climate of the developed world, I think you are mistaken in picking the electronic book as a necessary symptom of this banal cultural retrenchment. I do not doubt for a moment that there are those who see electronic books as a means to gain further control -- read ways to make more money -- over the types of written content people read and the ideas, emotions, and experiences they contain. However, this is nothing new. One of the primary features of any society are the types of intellectual content it attempts to promulgate or suppress.

In the end, for me, my electronic reader is simply a better way to read books. After all, isn't it the content that matters most? Isn't that what Fahrenheit 451 concludes? The physical books may be destroyed, but the words, and what they come to represent to the reader/listener, go on. The electronic book is just another way of telling the story, one that has tremendous capacity, flexibility, and portability. Will it be abused for cynical gain and pandering to the base? Undoubtedly. It will also be the means by which many people come to cherish the written word.