[HN Gopher] French modernists were alarmed, inspired by newspape...
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French modernists were alarmed, inspired by newspaper's voracious
dynamism
Author : crescit_eundo
Score : 140 points
Date : 2025-01-17 16:21 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (aeon.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (aeon.co)
| scandox wrote:
| Interesting article but unfortunately, as is often the case with
| serious literary folk talking about technology, I find his
| concluding observations (hopes) about augmented books completely
| unconvincing as well as vague.
|
| >> The prospect of paper-based augmented books also holds out the
| possibility of revolutionary combinations of text, image and
| sound that would recast the boundaries of literary art.
|
| Sounds like a solution in search of a problem, or worse - the
| sort of kidutainment geegaws you find in modern libraries.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| > ''sort of kidutainment geegaws''
|
| Or rather as special case learning tools that would gather
| dust, I suspect.
| colechristensen wrote:
| >The prospect of paper-based augmented books also holds out the
| possibility of revolutionary combinations of text, image and
| sound that would recast the boundaries of literary art.
|
| So TikTok with subtitles (which are often not actually
| reflecting the sound)
| mmooss wrote:
| > as is often the case with serious literary folk talking about
| technology
|
| You should also see technology folk talking about serious
| literary folk - it's equally misconstrued and off track.
| theendisney wrote:
| They can both be wrong
| aredox wrote:
| >In the 1860s, Charles Baudelaire bemoaned what we might now call
| doomscrolling: [...] The poet's revulsion was widely shared in
| 19th-century France. Amid rapid increases in circulation,
| newspapers were depicted as a virus or narcotic responsible for
| collective neurosis, overexcitement and lowered productivity.
|
| On one hand, one could think "oh, the current social network
| bashing is just the same doom and gloom reaction to more
| communication, it will pass".
|
| On the other hand, if you know well the period, the newspapers of
| the time - which were closer to the tabloids of today, but worse
| - did a lot to stir hatred of foreigners, of Jews, of Poor, and
| contributed massively in causing wars, colonialism and pogroms.
|
| Emile Zola published "J'accuse !" in a newspaper, but it was
| newspapers who stirred rabid antisemitism everywhere.
| dbtc wrote:
| They had opium, we have fentanyl.
|
| It's not all bad but it's more potent now by far.
| inciampati wrote:
| Poetry with a heavy dose of truth.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| I haven't been able to back this up and I'm afraid I'm making
| trumpesque accusations, but Chinese manufactured fentanyl
| always seemed to rhyme too well with the flood of American
| opium back in the day (second only to the English, not for
| lack of trying)
|
| I would suspect Chinese kingpins wouldn't be operating
| without the Party's blessing, but everyone seems too shy to
| point fingers, easier to blame the addict. Still, someone's
| getting rich off it, now as then.
|
| _Long before the Sacklers appeared on the scene, families
| like the Astors, the Peabodys, and the Delanos cemented their
| upper-crust status through the global trade in opium._
|
| https://www.thenation.com/article/society/american-old-
| money...
| portaouflop wrote:
| If you look past ideology this is the key:
|
| > someone's getting rich off it, now as then
| pessimizer wrote:
| I still can't get over the fact that there were Dreyfusard and
| anti-Dreyfusard _bicycle racing newspapers._
|
| https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_V%C3%A9lo
|
| https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Auto
|
| The anti-Dreyfusards won, put the Dreyfusards out of business
| by starting the Tour de France, and eventually went on to
| support Vichy.
|
| edit: https://blog.nli.org.il/en/tour_de_france/
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| And on the grasping hand, one could think _they were right_ -
| so instead of defending social media by pointing at the past
| and saying it 's "just the same doom and gloom reaction to more
| communication, it will pass", or - conversely - instead of
| claiming social media is a new and uniquely bad thing, we could
| perhaps consider that their observations were valid then, and
| are _even more valid now_ ; that we've been going down the
| wrong road for the past 100+ years, and social media is merely
| an incremental worsening of a mistake made so long ago, we
| can't even conceptualize correcting it now.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| But it wasn't continuously bad, or at least that's the
| impression I get. Yellow journalism reached it's heyday in
| the 1890's but started turning things around towards
| respectability in the 1900's.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| And then returned in the 1990's with the 24 hour news
| networks.
| conception wrote:
| More the removal of the fairness doctrine.
| maroonblazer wrote:
| I don't think this gets mentioned enough. Rush Limbaugh
| was the result of the doctrine's abolition. You can draw
| a straight line from Limbaugh to Fox News, et al.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Even if it was left in place it would have become
| increasingly a joke as non-broadcast news grew in the
| form of cable rollouts and the internet.
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| But how exactly would you define the "mistake made so long
| ago"?
|
| Is it the free circulation of newspapers?
|
| Would you prefer to ban journalism or restrict the exchange
| of information, and what would that imply for the internet?
|
| If you ask me, it seems like the incentive "money" might be a
| problem. Maybe _commercial_ journalism and social media are
| the main issue? Which is closely related to the concept of
| media as entertainment.
|
| Not a new idea either, and a boring reply without a real
| answer, I know.
|
| Allowing only state-sponsored journalism would not be any
| better, right?
|
| Public broadcasting (as independent from the government as
| possible) is nice, but doesn't solve the issues discussed
| here.
|
| It seems like a reasonable and common view that being
| dependent on other's money hurts freedom of thought and
| expression, which is a basic requirement for free press.
|
| So commercial media always was the default, but being
| dependent on commercial success and the favor of the public
| always hurt the mission we ascribe to a free press.
|
| Same goes for the requirement to entertain the readership -
| it cannot be disregarded, no matter how sophisticated the
| media we consume might be, it needs to capture our attention
| in some way. This differntiates writing from data.
|
| So my long answer kind of confirms your observation that "we
| can't even conceptualize correcting it now". I'm not sure if
| it's impossible though.
|
| I'd be curious what your own ideas are about how to "fix the
| mistake". It seems like a political question for sure though.
| miohtama wrote:
| We have examples on all sides.
|
| China has only strong state sponsored journalism and strict
| censorship. Outside the Chinese government official, I have
| not yet met a person who thinks the model is working.
|
| Also we have historical examples in the West. East German
| etc. Czechoslovakia was squashed by 500,000 Warsaw Pact
| troops because they liberalised newspaper.
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| Yes I was thinking about mentioning China, but I have not
| experienced this kind of blatant censorship and control
| myself. Hoping ofc to keep it that way.
|
| But at the same time, social media brain rot is
| definitely real, and its hurtful effects on public
| discourse.
|
| The comparison to early press is warranted to open up
| this topic and really take a look at reality. Banning
| specific platforms seems like symbolism at best, but
| paper press was not personalized in such a fine-grained
| way, although the bubble phenomenon is not strictly
| limited to the web.
|
| And no paper journal ever had access to so much personal
| data of their readers.
|
| I think many debates about this boil down to the question
| whether we want to merge private and public discourse.
|
| Coincidentally, this is not just a property of social
| media but also of totalitarianism.
| brookst wrote:
| But at some point if you're saying hundreds of years of human
| history are "the wrong road", isn't it like saying gravity is
| the wrong road? Even if true, what does it matter? I don't
| believe prescriptive changes to human nature have ever
| worked.
| gedy wrote:
| You are correct imho, but bear in mind there is a large
| minority of people who believe in people as "blank slates"
| that are only formed and influenced by environment. I think
| it's Quixotic to fix people that way but many would
| disagree.
| pigeons wrote:
| A mere hundreds of years of human history have a lot less
| "gravity" than gravity.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > the newspapers of the time - which were closer to the
| tabloids of today, but worse - did a lot to stir hatred of
| foreigners, of Jews, of Poor, and contributed massively in
| causing wars
|
| Sure, but this is just as true of the earliest printed works in
| the 16th and 17th centuries. So this really is a fallacious
| argument unless you also think that we should be dispensing
| with freedom of the press in general.
| theendisney wrote:
| Seems a great idea. The trash on social media is some how
| less trashy than the papers. We should ban it for one or more
| years then give them their freedom back conditionally, under
| supervision. We should elect the supervisors.
| gunian wrote:
| Any idea where I could get my hands on such records? Lately my
| voracious reading appetite has been encouraging me to seek out
| first hand accounts
| plastic-enjoyer wrote:
| >oh, the current social network bashing is just the same doom
| and gloom reaction to more communication, it will pass
|
| One might ask if it wasn't just down hill from the tabloids to
| social media in our current time. I tend to think that the
| development from tabloids to radio, television and social media
| is actually a consistent and logical development. The aim has
| always been to generate as many readers / listeners / viewers
| and engagement as possible, and the possibilities have become
| increasingly effective and efficient thanks to digital
| information processing. However, the side effects that each new
| medium introduces are becoming more extreme.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| I'm totally fine saying newspapers, conceptually, are just net
| negative.
|
| They are a tool that can be used for good or evil but largely
| inevitably end up in the hands of selfish commercial or
| political interests.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > On one hand, one could think "oh, the current social network
| bashing is just the same doom and gloom reaction to more
| communication, it will pass".
|
| I never understood this argument.
|
| It's obvious that the pace and scale of "progress" increased
| dramatically, making things much harder to contain/study and
| making them much more potent to a much larger group of people
|
| Were was he proved wrong that tabloids made people more stupid?
| Humans are very adaptable, the fact that we're still here
| doesn't invalidate his opinion.
|
| The logical progress from these things gave us 24/7 opinion
| news channels and they definitely make people stupid, much more
| than paper news.
|
| Finally even if he was wrong, there is no logical way to use it
| to prove that a tiktok ban is wrong, someone being wrong about
| something vaguely related in the past doesn't automatically
| make every future vaguely related opinions wrong for eternity
| yapyap wrote:
| They weren't wrong, the people controlling the media, whether
| that be the owner of the newscompany or the owner of the
| algorithm that influences what newscompany gets recommended
| prefers it when the reader gets recommended criticism of others
| based on race or other indignificant things instead of riches,
| cause they are the people with riches.
|
| It's not a coincidence.
| kridsdale3 wrote:
| There's a reason Hearst was rich enough to build a castle.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| This seems like a tautology.
|
| Of course if you set the baseline expectation at Baudelaire's or
| Balzac's writings then it's true that newspapers heralded an age
| of barely sentient readers consuming nonsense written by moronic
| and corrupt journalists.
|
| Because the vast majority of the population, including those
| working for newspapers, are dumber and less virtuous relative to
| the 99.9th percentile of notable writers... by definition.
|
| Edit: The real question is why would anyone set their
| expectations so high?
| theendisney wrote:
| If you want to solve a problem pretend it is your fault.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| I tried pretending aging was all my fault and it didn't do a
| goddamn thing.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > The internet and its associated gadgets stir reactions
| remarkably like those once directed at the press. In some
| quarters, futurist technophilia; more commonly, alarm at the
| social, political and cultural impact of these innovations,
| combined with neurotic dependence upon them.
|
| Note that the article is _not_ taking the simplistic position
| that, because 19th century French writers decried the emergence
| of the newspaper, and 21st century contemporary thinkers decry
| the dominance of social media, that the latter should be
| dismissed. It 's more nuanced than that, and it's really mostly
| an accounting of how those Modernists thought about newspapers,
| with a little bit of "let's consider a modern example..." at the
| end.
|
| One thing I'd like to point out, though, is that very common
| argument by which one waves away concerns about social media
| today because, in the past, Socrates said reading is bad, and
| Mallarme said newspapers are bad, is really a canard for two
| reasons.
|
| First, because the social media is not reading, or newspapers,
| it's a different thing altogether, and in any case what happened
| in the past does not strictly determine a new case in the present
| or the future.
|
| Second, because I'm fairly certain Mallarme and Proust and
| Baudelaire would probably look at the world newspapers created,
| and say "I was right about newspapers all along". It did create
| yellow journalism, it did create tabloids, it did redefine truth,
| and recalibrate leisure, and it did create doomscrolling, and
| make people think in different--and not necessarily better--ways.
| Technology changes the world, and people adapt to it. After the
| fact of that change, the world normalizes, and new generations
| can't conceive of any prior alternative way of being. But, that
| does not mean the change was an improvement.
|
| As a consequence, it may be categorically incorrect for us to
| even try to evaluate these historical positions from our modern
| perch. Maybe _all_ we can do is listen to what people living
| through that change said, and take it as read, pun intended.
| pembrook wrote:
| To me this comment reads like a lot of bending over backwards
| to try to the justify a gut feeling of "yea but for sure this
| time is different right??"
|
| Tech elites on HN worrying about the moral fortitude of the
| unwashed masses in the face of the technological changes they
| themselves have brought about...it's all a bit too "self-
| important loathing" imo.
|
| Everything's fine and going to be fine.
| immibis wrote:
| Everything's not fine, hasn't been fine for at least a
| decade, and it's not at all certain that everything is going
| to be fine.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| Everything has never and will never be completely fine.
| Things are better today than ever and continue to improve.
| Get offline and look around the real world for a while.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Things are certainly better overall, but that improvement
| is not universal, and not evenly distributed. Clearly.
| Otherwise, we would simply say "everything is as good as
| it can practically be," which is something few people are
| doing. One of the ways in which the world is imperfect is
| that our media--and our relationship to that media--could
| be better. Anything in that to disagree with?
| immibis wrote:
| By most metrics, things were better about a decade ago.
| We're on a downward trajectory now. Except by GDP.
| reissbaker wrote:
| What metrics do you think were better in 2015?
| mvdtnz wrote:
| What metrics? Do you think the millions of people lifted
| out of extreme poverty in the last decade would agree?
| immibis wrote:
| Didn't I say "except by GDP?" Extreme poverty is decided
| based on GDP.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| No extreme poverty is not decided based on GDP[0]. So
| which metrics?
|
| 0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty
| immibis wrote:
| > In 2018, extreme poverty mainly refers to an income
| below the international poverty line of $1.90 per day (in
| 2011 prices, $2.57 in 2023 dollars),[2] set by the World
| Bank.
|
| I'm ending this discussion now.
| tolerance wrote:
| What real world?
| ChoHag wrote:
| > First, because the social media is not reading, or
| newspapers, it's a different thing altogether
|
| Are you suggesting that historical books and newspapers were
| _not_ pandering to populist whims? Of course they did. Is the
| difference the precision of the targeting? That sounds like a
| difference of degree not of substance.
|
| > It did create yellow journalism, it did create tabloids, it
| did redefine truth, and recalibrate leisure, and it did create
| doomscrolling, and make people think in different--and not
| necessarily better--ways.
|
| It also created the article we just read and this web site to
| find it on.
|
| > Maybe all we can do is listen to what people living through
| that change said
|
| Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
| tptacek wrote:
| They were right to be alarmed, weren't they? (As an analytical
| statement, not a prescriptive one.)
| ggm wrote:
| Recommended reading: "The Banquet Years" by Roger Shattuck (1955)
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