Leon Wieseltier comes out swinging
It is difficult to begin reading Leon Wieseltier’s New York Times essay, Among The Disrupted, without worrying that it will be an angry screed about technological progress, and in particular, the internet, as he has a history of being ‘disagreeable.’ Please read on.
The essay opens like so:
“Amid the bacchanal of disruption, let us pause to honor the disrupted. The streets of American cities are haunted by the ghosts of bookstores and record stores, which have been destroyed by the greatest thugs in the history of the culture industry. Writers hover between a decent poverty and an indecent one; they are expected to render the fruits of their labors for little and even for nothing, and all the miracles of electronic dissemination somehow do not suffice for compensation, either of the fiscal or the spiritual kind. Everybody talks frantically about media, a second-order subject if ever there was one, as content disappears into “content.” What does the understanding of media contribute to the understanding of life? Journalistic institutions slowly transform themselves into silent sweatshops in which words cannot wait for thoughts, and first responses are promoted into best responses, and patience is a professional liability. As the frequency of expression grows, the force of expression diminishes: Digital expectations of alacrity and terseness confer the highest prestige upon the twittering cacophony of one-liners and promotional announcements. It was always the case that all things must pass, but this is ridiculous.”
For those of you who don’t know of Wieseltier, here’s an extract from Wikipedia: ‘Leon Wieseltier is an American writer, critic, amateur philosopher and magazine editor. From 1983 to 2014, he was the literary editor of The New Republic. He is currently a contributing editor and critic at The Atlantic.’
What it doesn’t say is that he is a renowned and storied public intellectual. His metier is one of serious cultural discussion and, at times, of defending the Humanities. Nothing wrong with that. The problem though, as you might imagine, is that when you take on the new technologists along with the inclination of media producers to follow the breadcrumb trail of every piece of content posted to the web, you run the risk of being euphemistically tarred and feathered. With that in mind it is still fair to say that we can lay the blame at Wieseltier’s own feet this time — he really did come out swinging: How about this: “…the greatest thugs in the history of the culture industry.” I mean, really? So he is angry. It is still worth reading the essay though.
Because of his history and public stature, Wieseltier’s essay landed on the front page of the New York Times Book Review section. That is where I read it. Ironically of course, it was also posted to the web 11 days prior. This gave the media time to prepare their own responses to the essay. They too came out swinging.
Matthew Kassel in the New York Observer starts his article ‘What Was Leon Wieseltier Thinking?’ with this:
“If you made it at least 984 words into Leon Wieseltier’s long, seemingly incomprehensible rant against technology, “Among the Disrupted,” then you may have noticed — just barely — that it was also a flattering appraisal of Mark Greif’s first book.”
“If you made it.” Quite a putdown. At least Kassel prefaced ‘incomprehensible rant’ with ‘seemingly’, which I take on faith alone to infer that he read the whole piece, and found it not incomprehensible, as did I. He also added a note — His thoughts are abstract, and many readers took issue with the opaque tone of the piece — mostly on Twitter, no less. The link takes the reader to a revolving Twitter feed of denouncements and dissension, some funny, some not. One tweeter compared Wieseltier’s concerns to that of Plato’s, who’s own concern was that when the Greeks began writing, not just orating, the world would lose the capacity to think. Do we now place Wieseltier and Plato in a file marked ‘What did they know?’ (Wieseltier would probably be very happy in the company of Plato.)
I think the point that has been missed in all this fuss is that this is not a competition between the past or the future, therefore there are no winners. It is an argument set in the present. Wieseltier is attempting to have us pay attention to the fact that, yes, progress is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to trample over everything in its path. Throughout his long career, Wieseltier has often written in such a way that comes across as disagreeable, in the true sense of that term, and that’s the intention; he’s saying, disagree with me. To attack him for being somehow out of touch is insincere. Even Steven Pinker weighed in with his tweet — “I disagree with every paragraph in this essay by Leon Wieseltier (insofar as I can make sense of them).” I believe that Wieseltier deserves something more fleshed out than a Twitter response from someone of Pinker’s stature. Then again, Pinker is an author at the New, New Republic, Wieseltier’s old stomping ground.
I am not here to defend Wieseltier. I am neither worthy nor capable. Seriously. The essay is opaque; it also smacks of ‘get off my lawn.’ I am here to defend some of his opinions. His point, or points, get some cover when the cognoscenti comes out against him. What happened to reasonable discourse? (Oh right, internet.) It’s ok to disagree with him, as I do in parts, but that doesn’t mean that he needs this from Kassel: “…the point of view of a bookish old man feeling threatened by the prospect of technological change.”
Wieseltier isn’t ignorant of how society and culture progresses when, in his opinion, he writes, “…it was always the case that all things must pass, but this is ridiculous.” I think that’s a fair point. I would also propose that it’s fair to say it is not just older people who feel threatened by technological change — just ask a young cab driver, paying off the cost of his medallion fees, what he thinks of Uber.
A phrase of Wieseltier’s that struck me, was “…content disappears into “content.” Yes it does, yet not in all cases is that a negative; the ‘container’ may have changed — for example from a CD to MP3 to streaming — but that doesn’t mean the content is rendered moot. I believe his underlying beef is with “content” that is simply manufactured to resemble editorial, nefariously hidden amongst advertising. Or essays written chock full of keywords for SEO purposes. (I also sense that Wieseltier is still licking his wounds over the New Republic debacle.)
Across the web at large, it is too easy to end up on salacious “news” sites that make you feel like you’ve landed amongst an impenetrable carapace of untruths. It is also unsettling. Words once taken at face value are delivered as fractured sentences in deference to society’s attention deficit; articles are staggered, striated, linked, no longer gestalt; marked down, gerrymandered, blue plated; they leave one with the mouthfeel of three-day-old porridge.
Words reduced to link bait. Such is progress.
So, is the world now only for the young and the brave, especially when it comes to technological advancement? No, it’s not. The public shaming of our elders, without reasonable discourse, by technologists and media types doesn’t serve anyone well.
Hopefully we are not “content” with that.
