That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment isn’t apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen. Agreements on all sides that core institutions must be protected are rendered meaningless by the very people doing the agreeing. (Luther and the Church both insisted, for years, that whatever else happened, no one was talking about a schism.) Ancient social bargains, once disrupted, can neither be mended nor quickly replaced, since any such bargain takes decades to solidify.And so it is today. When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to.
There are fewer and fewer people who can convincingly tell such a lie.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Journalism and The Revolution
Monday, March 16th, 2009I *heart* Haruki Murakami
Monday, March 16th, 2009Please do allow me to deliver one very personal message. It is something that I always keep in mind while I am writing fiction. I have never gone so far as to write it on a piece of paper and paste it to the wall: rather, it is carved into the wall of my mind, and it goes something like this:“Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg.”
Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will have to decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will decide. If there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be?
What is the meaning of this metaphor? In some cases, it is all too simple and clear. Bombers and tanks and rockets and white phosphorus shells are that high, solid wall. The eggs are the unarmed civilians who are crushed and burned and shot by them.
This is not all, though. It carries a deeper meaning. Think of it this way. Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. This is true of me, and it is true of each of you. And each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is confronting a high, solid wall. The wall has a name: it is “the System.” The System is supposed to protect us, but sometimes it takes on a life of its own, and then it begins to kill us and cause us to kill others — coldly, efficiently, systematically.
I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on the System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them. I fully believe it is the novelist’s job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories — stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.
Quote for Today
Sunday, February 15th, 2009“I have come to believe that if history were recorded by the vanquished rather than the victors, it would illuminate the real, rather than the theoretical, means to power; for it is the defeated who know best which of the opposing tactics were irresistible.”
~~Maya Deren, Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti
Useful Research tool for Designers
Monday, December 15th, 2008It always amazes me what God can do with a single light source
Monday, December 8th, 2008Twyla Tharp On Creativity
Sunday, November 16th, 2008I Love Doug Rushkoff – Election Edition
Friday, November 7th, 2008Though I share in the jubilation at Obama’s election, I find I’m also a bit guarded. Holding back, as if afraid to get “fooled again” by the promise of new leadership.To be sure, it’s going to feel good and be good for America to have a potential world leader as our president – someone who, instead of bringing himself down to the level of the least common denominator, actually demands that we raise ourselves to his level of discourse and sophistication. Friends are asking me what words like “bipartisanship” mean – a sure sign that they are actually, finally interested in how government functions and what it is Obama might do to change it.
But I’ve also got the nagging sense that too many of us are still hoping and waiting for what Obama’s going to do. As if the president somehow enacts policies or spends money in a way that makes everything better. This is not what a president does. Yes, there are certainly public works programs Obama can promote, to rebuild highways or develop alternative energy technologies while giving jobs to more Americans. These are potentially great top-down stimuli for a failed economy and neglected infrastructure – but they do not rebuild a society ravaged by runaway deregulated capitalism and military misadventure.
That part is up to us. And in this sense, we must take Obama at his word: the moment is now, we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. The election of Obama is itself a cue. It’s a cue that America can elect a smart, capable, and caring person as its leader. That we are capable of transcending the logic of short-term self-interest, fear, and even racism. And if we are capable of doing this, it means we are better than we act most of the time. This moment is the bang of the starter’s pistol – an awakening, an opportunity.
This day is brought to you by the color Red
Wednesday, October 29th, 2008Sunlight causes wrinkles, among other kinds of skin damage, but a different kind of light – specifically the red glow from LEDs – may help to smooth them out by altering the interactions between water and elastic proteins in the skin.
A groundbreaking study by two University of Rochester psychologists to be published online Oct. 28 by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology adds color—literally and figuratively—to the age-old question of what attracts men to women.Through five psychological experiments, Andrew Elliot, professor of psychology, and Daniela Niesta, post-doctoral researcher, demonstrate that the color red makes men feel more amorous toward women. And men are unaware of the role the color plays in their attraction.
