News from the Front Porch Republic
Greetings from the Porch,
The fall issue of Local Culture is heading to the printer. You can read Jason Peters's editorial, peruse the table of contents, and subscribe. And of course, we are looking forward to gathering with many of you in Madison next week!
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In this week's Water Dipper, I recommend essays about suffering, block revitalization, and faithful presence.
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Jason Peters introduces the fall issue of Local Culture, which is on friendship: "I’ll admit to some trepidation in devoting an issue of Local Culture to the second greatest gift the gods have given us. (The first is wisdom, or so said Cicero.) An obvious danger is that we can overthink a thing and in doing so underthink it. And too often we murder to dissect. What’s to stop us from doing the same with that high grace that united Jonathan and David, or Achilles and Diomedes?"
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Eric Adler praises Alexandra Hudson's The Soul of Civility: "Hudson’s work is a humanist manifesto for our times—one that could have a beneficial influence on our lives today, if only people will take its urgent message to heart."
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David Eisenberg exhorts incoming college students to pursue deep, liberating learning: "None of us gets to choose where we land. But if we cannot choose the times in which we live, we can choose how we live in the time we are given. Will we do so thoughtfully or heedlessly? Courageously or cravenly? Honestly and honorably or falsely and deplorably?"
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Philip Bunn commends Aurelian Craiutu's Why Not Moderation?: "The radicals ... to whom Craiutu responds may ostensibly be on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but they share a common agreement: that moderate liberal values and institutions have failed, that we now require passionate, extreme activists to accomplish what is necessary to address these failings, and that these radical activists must mount campaigns for new principles, practices, and institutions if we are to survive the harms moderate liberalism has passively allowed and directly caused. "
Tom Standage’s The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-Line Pioneers narrates the drastic upheavals the telegraph caused in the decades following its invention in the 1840s. He tells the story well, drawing on fascinating anecdotes and personalities and noting the uncanny parallels between the dynamics around the telegraph and those we experience today around the Internet. For instance, while many recognized that the telegraph would be a disruptive technology, they were often wrong about what precisely it would disrupt:
James Gordon Bennett was one of many who assumed that the telegraph would actually put newspapers out of business; because it put all newspapers on a level playing field, his shenanigans to get hold of the news earlier than his rivals would no longer be an advantage. “The telegraph may not affect magazine literature,” he suggested, “but the mere newspapers must submit to destiny, and go out of existence.” The only role left for printed publications, it seemed, would be to comment on the news and provide analysis.
Of course, this perception turned out to be wrong. While the telegraph was a very efficient means of delivering news to newspaper offices, it was not suitable for distributing the news to large numbers of readers. And although the telegraph did indeed dramatically alter the balance of power between providers and publishers of information, the newspaper proprietors soon realized that, far from putting them out of business, it actually offered great opportunities. For example, breaking news could be reported as it happened, in installments—increasing the suspense and boosting sales. If there were four developments to a major story during the day, newspapers could put out four editions—and some people would buy all four.
Thanks for spending some time with us on the Porch,
Jeff Bilbro