After reading an excerpt of Andrew Keen's book Cult of the Amateur, one of his passages stood out to me in a profound way: The Liquid Libary. In this passsage Kenn mentions Kevin Kelly who in 2006 wrote a article in New York Times, that described his veiws about creating Liquid Libraries on the web, that anyone can have access to books of all genre's and time periods. Pages of books can be carved into segments, rearranged, and words cut out; combining broken paragraphs, forming a craptacular version of the story.
"Should I be allowed to annotate and remix Moby-Dick so that Ahab spots the whale at the beginning of the journey? Is Plato's Republic still the same book if it contains a chapter from Locke paragraph from Kant. A finished book is not a box of Lego's, to be recombined and reconstructed at whim," (pg. 58)
As a writer myself, I'm deeply connected to my stories and poems. If someone were to disemember my words; it would be as if a part of my soul was ripped my from body. No one has the write to take art and destroy it because their bored or not fully able to grasp a work's meaning. These Liquid libraries would lead to the destruction of the writing culture: The artistic technique of weaving words, images, and ideas into a story will dissappear. Diction woould have no place in a society, were as longs as a work is quick and entertaining to read, its considered true literature.
There is already a decline in the popularity of newspapers, and literary magazines due to the internet. Though amateur reviewers and bloggers have the power to break or make a piece of writing, they should give books the respect they deserve, since they are the foundation of our world: Spreading Knowledge. If Kevin Kelly's idoic idea comes to pass, then future generations will never understand the messages of such classics as "Wuthering Heights" or "East of Eden," because they will be stripped and formatted to create a ball of confussion. How can new writers be born if all they have for inspiration is a puzzle of missing pieces?
Hopefully more writers will protest to keep physical copies of their books, and not allowing them to be exploited on the web. This will not only secure the next generation, but make others in our time see how our society will crumple if ideas of the past and present are shattered.
Thoughtful and concerned. You missed many hyperlink softballs that would have shed different light on, further focused, and otherwise enhanced your argument(s).
ReplyDelete