One way…
Last week I wrote a blog about the future of physical libraries in an online and digital world. Can they survive? Is there a place for them?
I also published it in The Huffington Post.
I have been blogging pretty regularly now for five years, but I have rarely seen a response like the one I got from the librarians.
Hundreds of tweets.
And the vitriol. And the invective!
You get the idea.
Hundreds of digital librarians gathered beneath my window with their pitchforks and torches.
Good writing, I think (and this is just my opinion, of course), like good art should challenge you and make you feel uncomfortable. I would (personally) rather be provocative than banal. But that is just me.
That is what I was trying to do. The question was, do libraries have a future in the digital age. And, in case anyone missed the point, the final paragraph was an analogy to Fahrenheit 451 (although I don’t support book burning, so stop with the tweets).
Well, in trying to provoke a conversation, I was certainly successful. It was the personal attacks that I found so astonishing.
In any event, this astonishing response made me start to think about the nature of public discourse in the age of the Internet.
And I don’t think it’s such a good thing.
When I was young (admittedly, a long time ago), there were only three TV networks.
As a result, everyone ended up watching pretty much the same thing.
And, in those days, which was a long time ago, the networks used to (on occasion) present controversial topics.
My mentor in the TV business, Fred Friendly, made his career by using the new medium of television to go after Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Later he produced Harvest of Shame, about the lives of sharecroppers in the American South.
These were also documentaries that made many people ‘uncomfortable’.
Bill Paley, who owned CBS, famously said that Fred’s work (along with his correspondent Edward R Murrow) gave him stomach pains in the middle of the night.
But that was a long time ago.
We have gone from three networks to a thousand cable channels to millions of websites.
The upshot is that you can always find something you like and someone with whom you agree.
MSNBC viewers all talk to themselves on MSNBC while FOX viewers all talk to themselves on FOX. In the meantime, everyone else runs Cupcake Wars to avoid annoying or alienating anyone.
The web allows us to avoid being confronted by the uncomfortable.
Ever.
Which, I think is a mistake.
Being confronted with the ‘uncomfortable’ makes you think.
Burger King used to run an ad (with a very catchy theme song) that said ‘have it your way’.
Well, having it your way all the time means you are never prepared to have it anyone else’s way.
Copyright Michael Rosenblum 2013
