Kaufman links e-book trend to bookburning, Nazis

[pshrynk]

GMTA!

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Godwin's Law

Thank you

Originally Posted by pshrynk

Godwin's Law of the Internet basically says that when Nazi Germany is brought up in a thread, then the thread has stopped having any relevance and should be abandoned.

Aha... does that make this whole thread irrelevant from the start? Probably

Originally Posted by pshrynk

GMTA!

Uh?

[pshrynk]

Great Minds Think Alike!

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by Alan Kaufman

A Statement From Alan Kaufman, author of 'THE ELECTRONIC BOOKBURNING' To My Mobile Read Critics
http://evergreenreview.com/120/elect...k-burning.html

Oh my. What a load of pretentious, pseudo-intellectual twaddle.

A world in which fewer and fewer people bother to read books that engage you. I don't mean Harry Potter or James Patterson. I mean The Brothers Karamazov. I mean Madame Bovary, Sound and Fury, War and Peace, Bleak House.

Ebooks and reading devices have dramatically increased my access to, and consumption of, classic, "worthwhile" literature. I'm sure this holds true for many, many others.

transfer all reading material to the internet

As many others have pointed out, you're completely missing the point. There is no "transfer of all reading material" going on. Any duplication of books into electronic form is the very antithesis of book-burning - it greatly reduces the chances of the work being lost.

We in America are now trained not only to favor devices over the book but to prefer them to reality itself, so that en masse we now spend the majority of our lives seated before screens, staring and surfing, typing and gaming, twittering and viewing, punching keys, pressing buttons. We who are manipulating the mouse that confers upon us the illusion of supreme control are ourselves the mice.

Luddism, pure and simple.

Naked reality without these buttons to press seems virtually unimaginable, even unlivable to most people today.

Compare: "Naked reality, without sanitation, antibiotics, printing, (add any technological advance) seems virtually unimaginable, even unliveable to most people today. "

What is this world we are making, in whch writers, now are told by the culture that they must beg at the internet portal for their existence?

Compare: "What is this world we are making, in whch writers, now are told by the culture that they must beg at the publishing house for their existence?"

Independent publishing by authors is easier with ebooks than it ever was before.

What is this world in which anyone with an arsenal of one hundred words may declare oneself an author by signing on for a blog, sprucing it up with graphics and pontificating about what they had for breakfast and what they think of Britney Spears?

Ah - I see that despite your limitations, you have at least mastered irony.

But our national illiteracy rate is now at 25% and climbing.

Really? The thoroughness of your research matches the clarity of your reasoning.

The corporations are producing a generatiton of machine-addicted barbarians. The efforts of techno-fascists to make the Book into the reviled Jew of our culture is no less insidious then the campaign waged in WWII by Nazi Germany against my people, the Jewish People, the People of the Book, and I say this as a child of a Holocaust survivor, sensitive to the horrors that such allusions summon and not lightly given to make such comparisons.

That is just ridiculous and offensive. To liken a new (additional!) delivery medium for the written word (which only adds to its possibilities) to the holocaust is gibbering idiocy.

/JB

[meraxes]

Originally Posted by Alan Kaufman

A Statement From Alan Kaufman, author of 'THE ELECTRONIC BOOKBURNING' To My Mobile Read Critics
http://evergreenreview.com/120/elect...k-burning.html

STATEMENT

Sir,

This was emotional but poorly (if at all) argued. Hyperbole is no substitute for research. Your talent for juggling words does not give you licence to twist the facts on the ground, or make conclusions that simply do not follow. Nobody cares about WHAT you think will happen so long as you fail to explain WHY. At this point you might as well predict that the sky will fall, for all the quality of your argument.

I understand the linchpin of your entire tirade is this: "...writers, now are told by the culture that they must beg at the internet portal for their existence...".

If "begging for existence" has been you personal experience, I believe the quality of your writing might have rather more to do with it than the emerging ebook market, which accounts for less than 5 per cent of the total book sales.

Finally, I believe that exploiting the bitter memories of Nazism to give weight to your vacuous rant is insensitive and unethical.

[kindlekitten]

you know, there could be some veracity to his point. he could have gone to the Amazon bestseller page and seen Stephanie Meyer in all of the top spots. that could go a long way to the concept of manipulating authors...

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

you know, there could be some veracity to his point. he could have gone to the Amazon bestseller page and seen Stephanie Meyer in all of the top spots. that could go a long way to the concept of manipulating authors...

Maybe, maybe, that is if Stephanie Myer can actually be considered an author.. and not an evil robot sent from the future to....*arg* *cough* *splutter*....Stephanie Myer is one of the most beloved and truly my favourite author of all time. Her delicate prose and not-insulting-to-women characters are a delight to behold. I would recommend her gladly to any fan of fiction.

[luqmaninbmore]

Originally Posted by jbjb

Luddism, pure and simple.

That is an insult to the historical Luddites who were conducting a class war against the rising lords of capital who sought to exploit them more thoroughly.

[meraxes]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

you know, there could be some veracity to his point. he could have gone to the Amazon bestseller page and seen Stephanie Meyer in all of the top spots

And you think all the teenage girls who have turned this book into a bestseller should have been made to buy Dostoyevski instead? Surely that is up to their parents, not the book selling industry. As for the grown-up audience rather than teenage girls, I find the idea that anyone is in a position to lecture them about which books are "good for them" and which aren't very patronizing and arrogant. Didn't the Nazis try to do the same?

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by luqmaninbmore

That is an insult to the historical Luddites who were conducting a class war against the rising lords of capital who sought to exploit them more thoroughly.

I'd say the "class war" description is slightly misleading, in that social class, while certainly involved in the Luddism movement, was not its prime motivator. It was principally a revolt against the introduction of new technology in the belief that it would lead to unemployment - the so-called "Luddite Fallacy".

History, of course is littered with dozens examples where refusing to expoit a new technology, in the hope that ignoring it will allow things to carry on just as before, has achieved that end. Or maybe not.

Having said that, no insult was intended, so I apologise if anyone took it as such.

/JB

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Maybe, maybe, that is if Stephanie Myer can actually be considered an author.. and not an evil robot sent from the future to....*arg* *cough* *splutter*....Stephanie Myer is one of the most beloved and truly my favourite author of all time. Her delicate prose and not-insulting-to-women characters are a delight to behold. I would recommend her gladly to any fan of fiction.

moejoe? hey man! it's ok!!! back away from the pretty swirly pictures! we're here for you!

Originally Posted by meraxes

And you think all the teenage girls who have turned this book into a bestseller should have been made to buy Dostoyevski instead? Surely that is up to their parents, not the book selling industry. As for the grown-up audience rather than teenage girls, I find the idea that anyone is in a position to lecture them about which books are "good for them" and which aren't very patronizing and arrogant. Didn't the Nazis try to do the same?

it was a JOKE



get the stick out of your 5th point of contact and engage your humour button

[Nate the great]

Steve Jordan just wrote about this discussion over at TeleRead:
http://www.teleread.org/2009/12/02/k...ing-revisited/

[luqmaninbmore]

Originally Posted by jbjb

I'd say the "class war" description is slightly misleading, in that social class, while certainly involved in the Luddism movement, was not its prime motivator. It was principally a revolt against the introduction of new technology in the belief that it would lead to unemployment - the so-called "Luddite Fallacy".

Those who fought this conflict were motivated by class interests: the workers fearing replacement and a worsening of work conditions (i.e. an increased tempo of production) and the owners of early industrial capital seeking to more thoroughly exploit the resources over which they had control: workers, raw materials, and machines.

Luqman

[luqmaninbmore]

Originally Posted by meraxes

Didn't the Nazis try to do the same?

Nooooooooo! I mean, yes, but augh, not another Nazi/Hitler/Holocaust reference.

Luqman

[meraxes]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

it was a JOKE



get the stick out of your 5th point of contact and engage your humour button

Well it's not my fault that your jokes are lame. Sounded exactly like something Mr Kaufman himself might have said. So why don't you practice your stand-up routine on your grandma first.