Kaufman links e-book trend to bookburning, Nazis

[emonti8384]

Originally Posted by Alan Kaufman

A Further Response To His Mobile Read Critics From Alan Kaufman, Author of 'The Electronic Bookburning” (Evergreen Review #20)
http://evergreenreview.com/120/elect...k-burning.html


If defeated, I'll French with a Kindle but if you go down, you must not only toss your device but read in full classics that I'll list, ranging from Marcus Aurelius, Sophocles, Homer and the Old Testament to Flaubert, Tolstoy, Babel, Stendahl, Proust and George Eliot, to name but a few.

And yes, there will be a test.

And why would that be fair, oh wise one? If you were defeated I'd say you have to read on an ereader device and read the books that you have thoroughly critisized (but prob have not read), aka-the bestsellers.


And yes, there will be a test

By the way, I'm 24 years old, have been reading since I was 6 years old, and highly enjoy reading the classics (especially on my reader)

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Very well stated.. But I was also truly trying to talk to this particular poster......

And it was a lovely effort. But it's pretty obvious he's not listening; he didn't come here to discuss ebooks or the future of printing and technology; he came here to rant at us and tell us we were all wrong, and poorly-educated, and had no appreciation for fine culture.

I agree that outreach to him might be a good idea--but it won't be accomplished on a message board that he's already decided is promoting another Holocaust.

Originally Posted by khalleron

May we please let this thread die? Pretty please with sugar on top?

It'll get there. Probably fairly soon, if Kaufman doesn't come back for another round.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

What are all you guys still doing here?!?

You were supposed to laugh at the guy, and move on!!

Stop wasting your brain cells on this... it is so not worth it.

[Patricia]

The Nazis denied people choices about what they could read.
Mr Kaufman does't want them to have a choice about how they read. And he isn't terribly happy about what some people freely choose to read either.

I've always believed that you don't liberate people by removing or restricting their choices. Rather the contrary, in fact.
Whether it's censorship of a reading device, or of a book: the medium may differ but it is still censorship.

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

What are all you guys still doing here?!?

You were supposed to laugh at the guy, and move on!!

Stop wasting your brain cells on this... it is so not worth it.

Think about it Steve..........if we can change this one persons outlook, and i think we could, if we could sit down and talk with him people to people........what a coup!

Just too bad it can't happen. I'd love to be in that group......

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Think about it Steve..........if we can change this one persons outlook, and i think we could, if we could sit down and talk with him people to people........what a coup!

Ha!

What would you gain by converting one prejudiced, closed-minded, Nazi-obsessed, Luddite geezer? A triumph over exactly one prejudiced, closed-minded, Nazi-obsessed, Luddite geezer!

I mean, you don't think Kaufman's gonna get on his page, say, "Gee, everybodies, I'm really sorry, those e-book guys really are swell," and suddenly we'll see a surge in e-book usage rivaling the Westward Expansion, do ya? (See, I can be prosaic, too.)

No. He sees us as lower forms of life than his own, and his opinion won't be swayed. Argue with him? I wouldn't want to be breathing the same air as him!

...

(Say, you don't think he's listening, do you?...)

[=X=]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

What are all you guys still doing here?!?

You were supposed to laugh at the guy, and move on!!

Stop wasting your brain cells on this... it is so not worth it.

What do you mean I just got here!
=X=

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Argue with him? I wouldn't want to be breathing the same air as him!

You do know that a plastic bag would fix that air sharing problem, don't you?

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Kaufman's Law (derivatives; Kaufmaned, Kaufmanning) - when an obviously uninformed and technophobic poster to an internet forum continues to post, believing that what they say is the truth and that nobody but they are privvy to that truth (as opposed to a troll, who purposefully posts remarks with no belief in them).

SECONDED!



Derek

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

What are all you guys still doing here?!?

You were supposed to laugh at the guy, and move on!!

Stop wasting your brain cells on this... it is so not worth it.

Normally, I'd agree. But when the bear has already survived being bear-baited and put into a fighting pit, if it then chooses to waltz right back into the ring, loose the hounds! (After all, Darwin was right about survival of the fittest and we have had ample demostration Alan Kaufman fails that test.)

Derek

[kindlekitten]

^indeed

[Alfy]

Originally Posted by khalleron

May we please let this thread die? Pretty please with sugar on top?

I second this, I'll even provide the sugar.

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by khalleron

May we please let this thread die? Pretty please with sugar on top?

Originally Posted by meraxes

Why do you care one way or the other? Don't read it if you don't like it.

I care because we're giving this ass a platform to spew his hate/filth.

He obviously came here because he googled himself and found us discussing him. The only way to get him to stop is to ignore him.

I'm now ignoring him. I ask nicely, sugar, honey and molasses, that you do the same.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by Alan Kaufman

A Further Response To His Mobile Read Critics From Alan Kaufman, Author of 'The Electronic Bookburning” (Evergreen Review #20)
http://evergreenreview.com/120/elect...k-burning.html


STATEMENT:

Hi-tech does not increase your brain capacity: it merely exercizes your thumbs.

STATEMENT:

"Lo-tech" does not increase your brain capacity, and, given your infantile statement that follows, it doesn't increase your knowledge either.

Not a few of you walk around with highly developed thumbs jammed deep into your own eye, like overweaned Oedipus Rex's, though lacking the nerve of that tragic king to pluck out your own eyes in order to better see the truth.

I'd gladly do is if I actually *had* the problem you're ascribing to me. *BZZZZT!* Wrong diagnosis, Dr. Kaufman. Where'd you get your medical training, the University of Incompetence?

For you are merch-juggled children breastfed on marketing strategies hatched before you were born and are so fully inculcated with h-tech propoganda that it is safe to say that with few exceptions virtually your entire generation haven't the capacity to interrogate your own experience vis a vis the addictive, soul-numbing machines that have become mocking substitutes for your human experience.

I *like* that - 'merch-juggled'. Are you attempting to create the word, 'merchandising-juggled'? And what is this with 'h-tech'? Are you attempting to state that (as a published author) you cannot figure out how to work a keyboard well enough to type 'hi-tech'? (And yes, your typing is fair game because your screed is based upon your supposed 'superior knowledge and literary ability'.

And if you find computers soul-numbing, I suggest you spend time living in a truly 12th century (A.D.) society as a serf. I'm sure that you'll find the 14-hour-per-day (minimum) slave labor quite a soul (and mind) numbing experience - enough so that you'll never use the phrase soul-numbing when describing technology.

Not a single one of you on Mobile Read, in your responses to my point, demonstrate a capacity to question the Matrix in which you float: a mental and spiritual prison of the most engulfing social conditioning ever foisted by private enterprise upon a peer group of human beings.

Prison? Come. Live in *my* shoes and *my* body for a while - sans this 'corrupting' internet access - and you'll be begging for the freedom that internet access gives you. Prison? No, Alan. Prison would be stripping me of the outside-my-home human contact that I cannot get because of my physical limitations. Thank you so much for arguing so vehemently for stripping us of one of the few things which makes my condition bearable. Yes, despite Godwin's Law, I'm going to say this. Hitler would be *SO* proud of you.

In this regard, you are no different than the children of any emergent totalitarian society, who cannot imagine a world without Big Brother. And it is chiefly that which I find so heartbreaking about the impact of hi-tech: not the machines per se but what the machines have made of you.

Am I afraid of 'Big Brother' using the internet and computers to watch me? Yes, indeed I am. I am a big-L Libertarian *because* I fear encroaching socialism/totalitarianism. But it is NOT technology that causes the problem. No, it is the desire of those same proto-totalitarians to use anything they can get their hands on to form their police-states that is the problem.

In fact, I sense from many of the responses that very few among you have bothered even to read in full or at all either of my essays but simply respond to each other's postings and vent with your thumbs instead of your minds.

Your responses, in fact, are troublingly similar, as though formed from the same pool of 50 or so monosyllabic words. This is, as I understand it, endemic to the level of discourse that occurs in hi-tech: a perpetual public convocation of spewing illiterates.

Og confused. Og not understand. Is long words bad or good? Long words most often used with hi-tech. Lo-tech most often use short words. Alan Kaufman say hi-tech bad. So why Alan Kaufman say short words bad?

Og so very confused. Og go back to cave now and beat head against rock just like Alan Kaufman say. Alan Kaufman *MUST* be right because Alan Kaufman use long words. But he not like hi-tech, which also use long words. Sigh. Perhaps Alan Kaufman should take long vacation on desert island until he understand real problem.

It appears that my essay has inspired a generational backlash among many of you, who see this as a face-off between an old fart white book-worshipping Luddite (how you portray me) and mainly young, progressive, enlightened and exciting hi-techers (how many, if not all of you, regard yourselves).

So, I'd like to extend the following invite to any on this site. Lets thumbwrestle for three shirtless private rounds in an alley of my choice, and see who's left victorious: my 6'2”, 200 pound, tattooed, 57 year old military veteran Bronx-born poetry writing streetfighting ass or your nerdy and ignorant Silicon Folly digitized selves.

Let's see. First you invite me to thumbwrestle and then you imply bodily violence against me. Stalin would *also* be so proud of you for retreating behind threats of violence.

If defeated, I'll French with a Kindle but if you go down, you must not only toss your device but read in full classics that I'll list, ranging from Marcus Aurelius, Sophocles, Homer and the Old Testament to Flaubert, Tolstoy, Babel, Stendahl, Proust and George Eliot, to name but a few.

And yes, there will be a test.

A test? Quick. Name ten great economists! Now name ten great philosophers!

If you fail to mention von Hayek, Smith or von Mises in either answer you've failed the test.

By the way, in order to understand why you failed, you'd have to be able to *read*, something which you continue to provide evidence you are incapable of doing.

Derek

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by Alan Kaufman

Dear FlorenceArt,
Yours is actually the sole reply from among 230 postings here that resonates with me (I have read each and every one: a private survey of e-book readers, to unearth signs of intelligent life: yours is the only evidence that I've so far found).
About my use of Holocaust imagery, I note that you reside in France. My mother was a French Jewish Holocaust survivor who was betrayed, at age 12, both by Western civilization and the French nation. In a world that engaged in futuristic Buck Rogers fantasies, she was hunted for years like an animal, first through the streets of Paris, then in the unoccupied zone in the south of France and finally through the mountains of northern Italy.

Her pursuers were not only German Nazis but French Vichy fascists and Italian Blackshirts. The means used to search for and identify Jews were, in part, sponsored by IBM, without whose early-stage primitive computor input the Holocaust could not have occured as it did. My people, the Jewish People, were exterminated by technological methods. In fact, it was the Nazi obsession with technology that in part fueled the Holocaust, as one technocrat after another sought to devise better means of more efficiently murdering ever-larger numbers of people. It was their way to climb the ladder of ambition.

The link between the culture of technology and that of mass murder were both unarguable and logical, since technology, though portending to serve man in fact enslaves him.It is even possible to think that technology in part precipitated the Holocaust, since the impetus to proceed was often the result of successful invention, which encouraged actions on an ever greater scale. It is the nature of technology to outstrip itself for no other reason than that it can. And so too with mass murder which, after a point, achieves a momentum of its own, which in turn frames its purpose.

At the heart of Naziism lay two principle focii: the Jew and the Book. The Nazis targeted both concurently. They saw control of the book and newspaper industry and their eventual destruction as integral to their plan for global domination. Their aim was to destroy the Jews and create a brave new world. In their attitudes to the book, they very much bore resemblance to today's tech-intoxicated aditvists who argue that books are "bound-dead trees", doomed to a deserved obsolescence, and who though they themselves barely read at all are fixated upon lifting texts out of the physicalrealm and
transferring them to electronic media, where they can be easily controlled and in all likelihood forgotten.

The Nazis, like today's hi-techers, presented themselves as forward-looking progressives enacting destinies beyond any average person's imagining. Butthogh they promised heaven, they brought hell. And I contend that the unchecked virus of technology that has invaded the very pores of human culture is rapidly ushering the downfall of all that makes humanity worthwhile. What it offers as replacement is a void of machines, apps, addictive games; there is no social fabric anymore, all of it transferred to the internet where each acts through the avatar of an invented online identity.

There is no relation to the haptic world, the world of touch, sensation, interface. Hi-Tech is literally appropriating the human and creating a black whole down which entire populations are dissapearing. And I maintain that hi-tech as is will produce, inevitably, the conditions that will lead to levels of barbarism and totalitarianism equal to or even surpassing those of the National Socialists.

Lastly, as the son of a survivor, I have learned to regard two factors as indicative of the health of a society: it's relation to the Jew in its midst, and its relation to the book.
And in both these, we in America are dramatically failing. Anti-Semitism in this country and around the world, and most certainly in France, is rife. And the widespread abandonment of books, bookstores nnd book culture, in favor of machines lead me to believe that our culture, our society, our civilization itself are heading for a monumental catastrophe.

About the offer to 'thumb-wrestle', that is a joke. Perhaps you're unaware of what thumb-wrestling is: a game one plays with children, an effort by one person's thumb to pin down another's thumb. Generally the game induces glee, laughter. That ought not to frighten you.

Both Proust and Stendahl understood what is callow about their societies and if they could not forsee that in a relatively short time modern society was about to turn
genocidally murderous, still, they knew where to look for signs--in those little epiphanies of personal or historical experience where, in a thunderclap, the whole truth is illuminated.

Thank you for your response.
Au Revoir!
Alan

Yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada... Alan, you are proving to be a broken record. Not only that, but it is one of those 'create a record yourself' records whereby the listeners are forced to hear some of the most out-of-tune, off-key, pitchy and mis-remembered-lyrics sets of songs ever heard by man.

Let's start with what your mother went through during WWII. Yes, I fully accept it was a HORRIBLE experience - I am glad she managed to survive. However, one must ask, did she, in *any* of her travails travel by auto, train or ship? Then she made *USE* of - GASP! - technology! Did she during all these experiences use a phone, telegraph or radio? Again, HORRORS! Technology! Perhaps she was treated for injuries or ailments which she endured? If the treatment was any more advanced than poultices wrapped with rough cloth or leeches to draw away the 'ill-humors' she (Please! I can't stand hearing this disgusting word!) benefited from technology!

Did the Nazis, Fascisti or Vichy do terrible things? Yes. But it wasn't their obsession with technology that made all this possible. It was their own twisted, sick views towards their fellow human beings that made this possible. To claim otherwise is stupid in the extreme. I grant you that technology in the form of poison gas and a few other things did make the process more 'efficient', but it wasn't the goal of science and technology to make this process efficient, that was the goal of the - say the word with me - politicians! That's right - government! Not science, but government is the culture most likely to create and maintain violence against humans.

Now it's clear that you think we need to have government 'control' that there 'ebil technology', that very 'debbil weed of science'. Really? Are you so ignorant of where the real problem lies? It's the politicians and their grotesque desires to control everyone they can which are the biggest threat we face - not whether some teenager wants to strengthen his thumbs by twittering every hour.

When you mature enough to understand this, please respond. However, as this may take a few more decades, I promise to NOT hold my breath.

Derek