The blog Curiosity Counts had this interesting quote from Marshall McLuhan:
"When any new form comes into the foreground of things, we naturally look at it through the old stereos."
Trying to understand McLuhan's idea better I clicked through to this post on Brain Pickings, where I found this quote by Evgeny Morozov:
"Our Internet intellectuals lack the intellectual ambition, and the basic erudition, to connect their thinking with earlier traditions of social and technological criticism. They desperately need to believe that their every thought is unprecedented. Sometimes it seems as if intellectual life doesn’t really thrill them at all. They never stoop to the lowly task of producing expansive and expository essays, where they could develop their ideas at length, by means of argument and learning, and fully engage with their critics. Instead they blog, and tweet, and consult, and give conference talks—modes of discourse that are mostly impervious to serious critique.”
I have been advocating for greater public intellectualism since I started this blog. This post from January 2008 is the first on the subject and captures many of the same ideas as Morozov.
In 2012 perhaps we should resist a bit the tendency for short superfluos publishing made possible by FB, Twitter and other digital technology. Perhaps we should rather develop more in-depth thoughtful written pieces or put the energy into book writing. That's the idea to guide you in 2012.
