Interesting - I'm a few years older and also went through my Internet-is-so-amazing-and-will-free-the-world-to-be-itself phase. I still think Web 1.0 with its messy, ugly decentralized page networks had a lot of things right, since the focus wasn't on capturing all the eyeballs or maximizing profit but on making organic connections. One major similarity was it was still a giant flame war.
Some interesting questions are: how to preserve civil discourse in the few spaces where it still flourishes, how to re-learn how to listen instead of just shouting into the void, how to create things that make life better and expand the space for future innovation rather than maximizing profit or monetizing everything? Not that I have answers right now, just ruminating.
Hi Stephanie, Thank you for the note! All worth ruminating about! As far as I'm concerned, Substack IS the answer - or at least that model; the ability to combine the freedom and anarchy of Web 1.0 with the contribution of the platforms (some sort of shared thoroughfare to enable connection). I'm sure there will be many other turns of the wheel, but this, to me, actually feels like a very good moment, when we're all collectively realizing just how ruinous the platforms have been and are starting to get serious about making the web work for individuals again.
I get that what I'm about to say may be way under the radar for you, Sam. But here goes: D.H. Lawrence, who somewhere along the line went out of fashion, was in his own way a prognosticator of what I perceive to be your argument. I'm excluding _Lady Chatterley's Lover_ in this comment and focusing more on _The Rainbow_ and _Women in Love_ --and his attack on industrialized society, let alone everything else he was notable for discussing before fashionable. Anyway, open to your super savvy reaction to this, probably strange, comment for most of your readers. But who knows? Maybe you do ... . xo Mary
Hi Mary! You're making me want to read more of D.H. Lawrence, but, yes!, the sense I got from him was that he identified - more acutely than just about anybody ever - the maladies of his particular era before they became externally manifest in ways that were unmissable to everyone. This - to me - is what many of the best writers and artists do. They spot something going on in a social, cultural setting that sort of seems like no big deal, but they recognize the implications of it and anticipate what the ramifications are eventually going to be. I remember taking a course on Japanese literature. We were reading a Natsume Soseki piece from around 1910, and the professor said, "He just knew what was coming." I tend to get a bit shy about evaluating writers as 'better' or 'worse' than one another, but this is one of the ways in which it's possible to draw a meaningful comparison. There are people - like Lawrence, like Soseki, like Joseph Roth - who very accurately understand the shape of their society (and time bears them out). And then are others - Zweig comes to mind - who are lionized in their own time but, as it turns out, completely missed what was going on around all around them.
Sam, I titled my newsletter (don't we hate that term?) "Only connect ..." from E.M. Forster's epigraph to Howards End. May I say, young good sir, I am deeply connected to your mind and I love your writing. I haven't commented on the short stories yet, but in time will do so. --Mary
I realise I'm a bit late to this thread, but ... D. H. Lawrence - thank you! Out of fashion and style, but prescient. Though there are passages from Lady Chatterley which (despite its reputation - undeserved, really) are spot on.
Bryan, I so agree with you--about those spot on passages. The only reason I excluded Lady Chatterly is that I don't think the novel that gained such notoriety represents what Lawrence did so remarkably in Sons and Lover, Women in Love, The Rainbow--and his collected poetry, the latter too often overlooked. xo ~ Mary
Did you ever read E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops"? It describes an astonishingly familiar world of life in front of a screen, though written in 1909! I wonder what Forster experienced at that time that would have inspired his vision. Perhaps it was just the disembodied communication enabled by the telephone that presaged lonely lives in the future?
Interesting - I'm a few years older and also went through my Internet-is-so-amazing-and-will-free-the-world-to-be-itself phase. I still think Web 1.0 with its messy, ugly decentralized page networks had a lot of things right, since the focus wasn't on capturing all the eyeballs or maximizing profit but on making organic connections. One major similarity was it was still a giant flame war.
Some interesting questions are: how to preserve civil discourse in the few spaces where it still flourishes, how to re-learn how to listen instead of just shouting into the void, how to create things that make life better and expand the space for future innovation rather than maximizing profit or monetizing everything? Not that I have answers right now, just ruminating.
Hi Stephanie, Thank you for the note! All worth ruminating about! As far as I'm concerned, Substack IS the answer - or at least that model; the ability to combine the freedom and anarchy of Web 1.0 with the contribution of the platforms (some sort of shared thoroughfare to enable connection). I'm sure there will be many other turns of the wheel, but this, to me, actually feels like a very good moment, when we're all collectively realizing just how ruinous the platforms have been and are starting to get serious about making the web work for individuals again.
- Sam
I get that what I'm about to say may be way under the radar for you, Sam. But here goes: D.H. Lawrence, who somewhere along the line went out of fashion, was in his own way a prognosticator of what I perceive to be your argument. I'm excluding _Lady Chatterley's Lover_ in this comment and focusing more on _The Rainbow_ and _Women in Love_ --and his attack on industrialized society, let alone everything else he was notable for discussing before fashionable. Anyway, open to your super savvy reaction to this, probably strange, comment for most of your readers. But who knows? Maybe you do ... . xo Mary
Hi Mary! You're making me want to read more of D.H. Lawrence, but, yes!, the sense I got from him was that he identified - more acutely than just about anybody ever - the maladies of his particular era before they became externally manifest in ways that were unmissable to everyone. This - to me - is what many of the best writers and artists do. They spot something going on in a social, cultural setting that sort of seems like no big deal, but they recognize the implications of it and anticipate what the ramifications are eventually going to be. I remember taking a course on Japanese literature. We were reading a Natsume Soseki piece from around 1910, and the professor said, "He just knew what was coming." I tend to get a bit shy about evaluating writers as 'better' or 'worse' than one another, but this is one of the ways in which it's possible to draw a meaningful comparison. There are people - like Lawrence, like Soseki, like Joseph Roth - who very accurately understand the shape of their society (and time bears them out). And then are others - Zweig comes to mind - who are lionized in their own time but, as it turns out, completely missed what was going on around all around them.
Always love your comments!
- Sam
Sam, I titled my newsletter (don't we hate that term?) "Only connect ..." from E.M. Forster's epigraph to Howards End. May I say, young good sir, I am deeply connected to your mind and I love your writing. I haven't commented on the short stories yet, but in time will do so. --Mary
Thank you so much Mary. Really appreciated. (Yes, hate that term.)
I realise I'm a bit late to this thread, but ... D. H. Lawrence - thank you! Out of fashion and style, but prescient. Though there are passages from Lady Chatterley which (despite its reputation - undeserved, really) are spot on.
Bryan, I so agree with you--about those spot on passages. The only reason I excluded Lady Chatterly is that I don't think the novel that gained such notoriety represents what Lawrence did so remarkably in Sons and Lover, Women in Love, The Rainbow--and his collected poetry, the latter too often overlooked. xo ~ Mary
Did you ever read E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops"? It describes an astonishingly familiar world of life in front of a screen, though written in 1909! I wonder what Forster experienced at that time that would have inspired his vision. Perhaps it was just the disembodied communication enabled by the telephone that presaged lonely lives in the future?
I haven't! Must read!