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And
computers are hype! No doubt about it. And
Internet publishing is too cheap and easy! Damn
that Gutenberg. This all started with his mechanical
printing press. Hand-scribed documents on prepared
parchment - now there's a book. Think of all those
monks out of work.
Bill Henderson is quoted by Mark Garvey in an article
entitled Unplugging for the new millennium.. Henderson
says, "I think the real danger for writers is that
they think, ' I won't even try to get this published.
I'll just blast this off over the Internet, and
I'll be published right away.' What they are calling
publishing is not publishing at all. They never
bother to revise, they probably never get much feedback.
It's just too damn easy to kiss it off into the
wind and think that all those million of people
around the world are reading it. Well, they're not,
it's just joining the rest of the garbage stream."
Bill Henderson is also critical of the typewriter.
In 1996, he published The Minutes of the Lead Pencil
Club. His premise is that all you need to write
is a pencil, paper. He obviously considers more
than these to be dangerous to the art of literature.
He regards the ubiquitous promulgation of computers
and networks to be the result of hype, driven by
commercial interests.
I disagree with the 1994 New York Times Op/Ed article
by Bill Henderson, but I will defend his right to
this curmudgeonly attitude to the very last IBM
Selectric(tm) typewriter, which, by the way was
produced years ago.
Here is the fallacy of Henderson’s argument. He
says that we live in a demand economy with ruthless
competition as a driverand that technology, which
is only hype and has no advantage, does not survive
the market test. But the reason why small businesses
all over the western world have adopted computers,
is because they are much more than hype. They are
power. They are leverage which increases production,
increases accuracy, and extends the ability of each
and every employee.
Hype? Tell that to the thousands and tens of thousands
of ex-employees who used to be required to "man"
the typewriters. Downsizing was not hype; it was
painful. Change or die, Bill Henderson.
The Internet has come under attack-by-slur in his
article. It is very popular to say that if it only
appears on the Internet, then it hasn't been officially
published -- only thrown before the ignorant masses
huddled before the flickering light of CRTs.
Would it surprise anyone to learn the very same
argument was made regarding printed vs. scribed
books? The ignorant masses with their cheap books
and tracts and broadsides would ruin the high art
of literature -- which was a holy thing; not to
be cheapened by mass distribution.
We've
heard it before. It is the cry of FLAT EARTH!
Copyright
© 1999 Robert Marcom
Robert
Marcom is a writer, and the Moderator for Net Author,
http://www.netauthor.org/
. Robert's writing credits include both print and
electronic publications. He resides in Houston,
Texas.
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