As John Steinbeck illustrated in his most widely recognized novel, there is something simultaneously compelling and pitiful about watching an entire group of people and way of life become obsolete. Despite what your more reactionary high school classmates (or possibly the teacher) said, the novel isn't an anti-progress luddite manifesto or a blueprint for communism. It's simply a document of what happens when change renders people unnecessary. Some lose everything, but everyone loses something. We, as a society, lose something in the march of progress. If you are unconvinced I can arrange a blind taste-test between factory farmed and free-range organic meat.
There are often practical reasons to adhere to "outdated" technologies.
In the previous example, using slow and inefficient farming techniques yields a product superior in some ways (health, taste, nutrition) and inferior in others (price, quantity, production time). People have the option to choose which set of characteristics they prefer. I respect both arguments because they are based on practical concerns, the relative values of which depend on the individual. What are dangerous, on the other hand, are sentimental attachments to the outmoded. Arguments based on nostalgia or vested interest are illogical and usually pretty pathetic to watch. You'd just feel sad, for example, listening to someone who made horse-drawn carriages or telegraph equipment lambasting the evils of motorized transport or the telephone.
That's exactly how I feel reading this rant against Salon's Glen Greenwald from the (metaphorical) pen of CNN's John King. Go ahead, read his whole pathetic, witless email. What do you see? Aside from a bunch of unsupported claims, ad hominems, appeals to authority, and other faulty logic, I see a teenage-caliber temper tantrum from someone who practices a craft that simply isn't relevant anymore.
All of the stock footage is there, most notably the claims that Big Important Media Types don't condescend to interact with amateur bloggers (note: we're not talking about fuckin' ginandtacos here – it's Salon, which has about 5 million daily readers) while doing exactly that. Bloggers simply don't understand the High Standards and Secret Knowledge utilized by the mainstream media. How dare we criticize Journalism, about which we know nothing?
While I don't subscribe to the popular = valid ideology, perhaps Mr. King should think about why viewership of traditional media is plummeting at the hands of the Blogging Fifth Estate.
Newspaper readership is through the floor, with surviving papers consolidating and overwhelmingly shifting content to "lifestyle", sports, and entertainment. More Americans get their news from the internet than television.
There are dozens of politics-oriented websites whose daily hits are counted in six or seven figures.
Why? Because the TV news aren't good for anything other than simple facts (at least a small portion of the relevant ones). The "analysis" provided by television and newspaper editorials amounts to idiotic noise.
I don't see John King making an argument – I see an entire industry in its death throes, and it's death by suicide. When they decided that "reporting" means accuretly writing down what public officials say and repackaging press releases as stories, they opened the door for someone to do their job for them. King's response is a combination of namecalling, generalizations, and desperate appeals to the Status and Exclusivity of Big Corporate Media. The bunker mentality is only hastening the process of people like King going the way of the steam engine.
Matthew says:
I know that you're talking specifically about political journalism, but I think this is a very interesting topic in a broader sense.
Self-service checkout lines at the supermarket may be good for shoppers, but it does eliminate jobs. Craigslist is good for buyers and sellers, but it's decimating to newspapers' most profitable sections. Digital distribution has lots of advantages, but the film and record industries are fighting it tooth and nail because of a perceived lack of control.
My favorite story about technological advances making people unnecessary was told to me by my dad. The elevator operators' union had enough sway that the municipal courthouse in Kansas City had somebody standing there through the 70's and even barely into the 80's, long after the elevators were operated automatically. He would just ask what floor and push the button for you.
Ed says:
That is an excellent anecdote, and it is firmly locked in my memory banks. Thank you.
The stock anecdote that comes to my mind is the government's dozens of attempts in the 1960-1990 time period to resurrect/prop up/reanimate the inter-city passenger rail industry (creating Amtrak, subsidizing Penn, etc). Note that they didn't do the logical thing and make an investment in the infrastructure of high-speed rail; they simply poured the money into keeping the trains running as Nostalgia Express (or something) long after air travel had far surpassed it in cost, speed, and fuel efficiency.
Samantha says:
As a counterpoint and a slight veering from the intent of the post, I'd like to say how much I disagree with change for the sake of change. Something has to be a significant improvement, in more than one area and in more than one way, over the original for it to qualify in my book as worthy of changing. Case in point: voting machines. I think maybe you'd agree with me here.
Another example: I'm an architect who still draws with a pencil on vellum. I know how to draw using both autocad and archicad, but, hey, a pencil still works best for me. There are only a couple of ways I think computer drafting is an improvement over hand drafting, and that's just not enough for me to give up something I personally get a lot of satisfaction from doing. My drawings don't just convey technical information; they're beautiful.
However, unlike John King, I'm not lambasting the entire architectural community for the shift from pencil to mouse. I understand that I'm something of a dinosaur and may be forced occasionally to personally deliver a set of drawings to a client rather than email them. I'm okay with this, and my clients are too.
As a post-modernist college professor once put it: If it ain't baroque, don't fix it.
Ed says:
I agree with you, obviously, that change is inherently good when "progress" means a newer and inferior product. Arguing that sticking to XP is better than the newer, "better" Vista makes sense, as does resisting voting machines. They don't f'n work. But the better analogy for the point I'm making might be the foolishness inherent in arguing for the abacus over the PC.
Martha Kopiasz says:
These are the best ways to generate content for your blog. It is advisable not to go with the automated path. If you do select to do that, you will probably have lots of content- but the substance of the text is unlikely to increase traffic for you. Putting in some lovely, old-fashioned content work will yield better results for you. As the expression goes- "you get out what you put in.