Listen to Lee Siegel, Internet Reading: Speeding Us Up by Dumbing Us Down?. He's positively unhinged, totally out of control. I don't really mind Siegel, he obviously going to spend as much of his professional capital as possible attacking the internet after his own negative self-inflicted experiences. Why is the media putting this guy on the phone? A 7 year old farting on air would be more informative and edifying. Siegel's been all over the place basically claiming that the internet heralds the arrival of Gog and Magog. I really wouldn't be too shocked if during the next interview Siegal pulls a young girl next to his phone and as she's screaming he cuts her throat and murmurs to the interviewer that the internet did it, that the internet was responsible for it and that the internet has blood on its hands.
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I've been trying to make sense of whether "the arts are in trouble," and when you get time series data collected from multiple sources and on a year-by-year basis, ballet underwent a boom in the 90s, maybe even into the 2000s (the data stopped). Not just ticket sales, but things like donations from individuals. Before that, there was a ballet boom in the late 70s or 80s, only slumping during the recession of the late '80s / early '90s. So, it's the opposite of what the doomsayers said.
For reading, it looks like people are spending less free time reading, but that could just be due to the internet. I guess that hurts fiction a little bit, but it's a lot better for everything -- because you can search. Can you imagine how long it would take for me to find every instance of adultery in Samuel Pepys diary from skimming through the books? Worthless. I'll just go to an online version and search for his mistresses' names. Boom.
lots of people *i know* "waste" their time on wikipedia, but i doubt it's the typical tard.... is this a bad usage of time? i don't know. books are important, they can lay out detailed and powerful arguments and analytic structures. but you need a lot of background facts to make sense of a lot of stuff, and the internet is excellent for that. balance. golden mean.
I have discovered that, as long as you take what you read with a grain of salt and verify verify verify, Wikipedia is an excellent starting point when beginning research. These mindless attacks on it (primarily because some younger folks are going to it and, without double-checking the information, taking everything Wiki says for granted) are just that: mindless. We need to teach in schools that Wikipedia, like all sources, needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
Even worse is when the attackers of Wiki act as if non-internet material, like books, journals, newspapers, and magazines, is never inaccurate. Of the hundreds upon hundreds of books that I've read, I don't think I've ever seen one that had zero errors or inaccuracies. In the very liberal publishing environment that we have nowadays, where anybody can publish a book, this is becoming even worse. Some books that I've read lately, even from respected publishers, are so laden with inaccuracies that I put them down and never open them again out of sheer frustration.
So, to summarize it all in one sentence: the problem isn't the internet; the problem is the failure of our society to teach proper research methodology.
Wow, I'm listening to him right now. He's even more insane than I thought.
This reminds me of the group near where I grew up who opposed replacing paper card catalogs at the local library with electronic ones. I kid you not...
If you think Siegel is bad, get a load of this guy:
Mark Bauerlein, author of 'The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30)'
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/gallery/dumbestgeneration?pg=7
"For digital immigrants, people who are 40 years old who spent their college time in the library acquiring information, the Internet is really a miraculous source of knowledge ... Digital natives, however, go to the Internet not to store knowledge in their minds, but to retrieve material and pass it along."
Then there's Nicholas Carr, 'Is Google Making Us Stupid?' The Atlantic, July/August 08.
Is this "the internet is making us stupid" micro-genre - the digital age version of Forster's 'The Machine Stops' - a fad, or a rising tide of discontent?
The obvious lesson here is clear. Never ever ever post in the comments section of your own blog under an assumed name. Got it?
I had a prof who shared a name with Lee Seigel. He jokingly blames him for being one of the reasons that his novels sell well in the French-speaking world, but have trouble in the English speaking world. The dude has been a gigantic two-faced ass to anyone and everyone in the culture scene. My profs novels would sometimes come back unreviewed, due to the misconception he was *that* Lee Seigel. The comments thing is one of his more minor dirty tricks.
Siegel is brave, brilliant, and wittier than Razib will ever be. Take that, you bunch of immature, abusive sheep.
LOL! That one is classic. After that episode, is he still at TNR?
LOL! That one is classic. After that episode, is he still at TNR?
The TNR website still has him listed as a senior editor on the columnists page. Although only one article is listed under his name and it is from last year.