The Digital Writer |
A good book has a history that demonstrates all the values those who envisioned freedom and democracy felt crucial: sacrifice, self-reliance, intelligence, due diligence, and spirit.
The good is often the product of those who care.
We would like to believe that what was true for the book can be true for a Web site. That a Web site can be constructed by simple caring and embodying the type of wisdom and health of spirit demanded even in this mass, anonymous world. And even though the Net is quickly being devoured by the corporate we remain fixed on the idea that one page of text, print or digital, lives only through the care of individual people.
Saroyan said, "baseball is caring." That is, it only survives if people care about it and they have to care about it, not when everything is going well but when things are rotten and the game is lost. I think that is true of anything that gifts to the people something enriching, playful, and intelligent.
I am reminded of this whenever I have the unfortunate duty to deal with corporations and their minions. They exemplify what's wrong with America and the modern world: they play-act in a world using other people's money, mind, and bodies even. Nothing is real to them but power. If power is the only reality then freedom is simply another fantasy. Enron was in the hands of those who did not care and it's an archetype, not an anomaly.
Nothing good is emerging from the gigantism produced by the modern world and its quest for power. In fact, it may be producing huge shadows that swallow up the spirit of freedom and everything else. I would say one of the riskier things to do is to test this thesis out in reality.
Everything is determined by marketing. At least, in this lifetime. Why did the market devalue Van Gough and make his paintings millionaires when he was dead? That is a necesary question in a culture where the market drives everything.
And we can testify with our little vessel here at Sunoasis.com, a howling wind can blow all around and through us from the gnomes of marketing.
We can't answer why the marketplace devalued Van Gough or Melville or Poe. Or why it celebrates the silliness it does.
It all vanishes in the great tomorrow.
But, the deeds must be done and done as well as one can, with every drop of resource available to the human being.
I can't think of two more incompatible creatures than the writer and the marketer. This oil and water mixture produces sludge much of the time. The writer has pure trust that the best will get through, that quality wins out. The marketer makes calculations based on what the market wants. Oh, it wants devils, not poets? Ok, we will promote the devils and leave the poets to their own devices. And, why not? The marketer is not asked to make a value judgement.
We wonder if truth-telling, insight, ideas, and other items relegated to the margins can not be their own promotion.
David
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