Alan Kaufman is at it again. In a follow up piece to his Electronic Book Burning he has a piece titled Hi-Tech Taliban
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Burning “Matches”
Burning a copy of “Matches” by Alan Kaufman. This book was burned to protest Mr. Kaufman’s comparison of the rise of ebooks to the holocaust. To make such a comparison is to belittle the horror that was the holocaust.
Creative
I like the part where he argues that invoking Godwin’s law = Holocaust denial.
*sigh*
There must be an irony to arguing for a print format on an electronic medium. I mean, if you really want to commit to it, you’d launch a print campaign. But since this electronic format (the blog post) reaches more people, costs less, and makes for easier sharing, I guess it makes more sense to have it in a digital format than a print one.
If anything, where was this sort of lamenting with the advent of blogging? Where was the person lamenting the end of paper diaries?
If there is anyone denying something there, it’s the author denying the possibilities of print-on-demand, small ebook publishing for authors who would not get interest from a publishing company, and other forms of vanity press.
Monsters from bedroom furniture
Again, like Alexie before him, Kaufman’s fears seem quite realistic on the surface. However, when we dig below and do some careful examinations, shedding some light on the subjects, the fade away like shadowy monsters returned to bedroom furniture.
Excerpt from:
http://www.fictionmatters.com/2009/12/10/the-three-fears-of-alan-kaufman/
Giving an Idiot an Audience…
Wow. I understand that as librarians it’s something of a duty to stand up for free speech, but this unintelligent skreed represents the worst kind of drivel on the internet. Tech = Nazis. I’m not shocked that stupidity like this exists, I’m shocked that LISNews would support this nonsense by linking it.
Insane
Um, I just got around to catching up on all this, and I wonder, does anyone see how insane this guy is? Does he really expect his words, published in an online format, to be believable or important? By his own argument his “essay” (read, “rant”) is worthless unless a tree has been cut down, milled into paper, and his words have been printed in ink and circulated on that dead tree. If only we would cut down more trees, produce more ink, and DEMAND that books continue to be printed on them will we avoid the coming genocide. (WHAT???)
Guess what though? Genocide is already going on and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with technology. There is genocide occurring all over the world as I write this –with fire, machetes, ropes, fists. (And, yes, guns). And war –of which genocide is a sub-group–has been going on since the genesis of the human race.
It is human nature which bears the blame for what will likely be, unless mass enlightenment is possible, an endless cycle of violence, killing, genocide, war–between peoples, nations, families, lovers. Technology is simply another tool. It can be used for good, or it can be used for evil, or, somewhere between the two, for blind, mind-numbing monotony: technology as a “drug” to dull our senses. Either way, it is not the technology at issue but the human beings using it. Focusing on technology as the root–or warning–of the problem is inane and childish. If Kaufman wants to talk genocide, then let’s talk genocide. Don’t waste people’s time with online articles about kindles: talk about what real VIOLENCE is. Talk about the harm done by words. Talk about the harm done by guns, and violent thought, and tempers unchecked. Talk about the violence that ensues when paranoia claims rational thought and the world is out to “get you”; when a whole race of people become “other”, or inferior, or threatening; when hatred, fear, and evil triumph over the other possibilities that we as a species possess. THAT is worth a discussion. The Kindle, and the paranoid fantasies of a marginal author, is not. The Kindle is just the latest toy– human invention flexing its muscle. At one time, that toy was the printing press.
The way that Kaufman uses the word “Hi-tech” –blindly, as an overarching term, as if it were interchangeable with “Big Brother”– is indicative of someone highly fear-driven and uneducated about the object of his fear: and, therefore, irrational. He does not, after all, seem to object to Israel’s “technology” –to guns, or bombs, or planes, or any other security device that keeps Israelis safe. I assume then that this is because he agrees with the purpose for which that technology is being used. Ah, but if he disagrees? Play the Hitler card! Play the Taliban card! Get hysterical, fast! He, Facebook-hater that he professes to be, appears to have a Facebook page which he uses for self-promotion (I was curious)–though not many people have joined the Alan Kaufman fan club.
By his own argument, he is an instrument of the next Holocaust by participating in “Hi-tech” culture. If this guy wants to even begin to live up to his grandiose claims, he should barricade himself in a small hole, cancel his phone and internet service, and come out only to crawl on his hands and knees to the doors of print publishing and BEG for a paper version of his rant. If he believes online publication to be an invalid form, devoid of literary value and the instrument of genocidal war, then, SHOULDN’T HE GET OFF THE INTERNET? Now THERE would be a man standing for his convictions!
Really. Game over.