the essay in the electronic age

8/7/2019 The Essay in the electronic age

1/4

The Essay in the Google age.

One of the assignments given out to my class in a creative (non-fiction) writing course

was The Essay, a form of writing made popular by the classical essayists of the 17th and

18th centuries; men (because there were few women) like Edmund Burke, Michel de

Montaigne, Francis Bacon and Blaise Pascal.

The subjects they picked to write about were universal, often philosophical, topics, such

as Mind and Style, The Sublime, Truth and Beauty, and The Misery of Man

without God.

These were typical themes of The Essay in its classic form. It had to be a topic of

interest to the reader, and back then, it seemed as though readers actually were interested

in universal themes. However, the essay was a popularizing form. It was necessarily

short, written in ordinary language that could be understood by those who had basic

literary skills. It was the individual writers point of view, not necessarily that of the

establishment, and it had be true to his thoughts and observations on the topic of choice.

Truth was the writers word(s), writing from a place of knowledge, experience andethical conviction. In his Pensees, Blaise Pascal wrote in 1660;

One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a

rule of life, and there is nothing better.

The vanity of the sciences.-- Physical science will not console me for the ignorance of

morality in the time of affliction. But the science of ethics will always console me for the

ignorance of the physical sciences.

Because it was short and had a certain entertainment value for the educated classes that

were growing rapidly at the time, the essay became a suitable form for a newspaper or

journal. In the 17th Century, these media were mostly print, newspapers, pamphlets and

books. The circulation of ideas took place slowly, over months and years. Oral exchange


2/4

also took place in literary cafes and salons but was confined to where and how long they

flourished.

So I decided that for my assignment, I wanted to pick a very large topic too, just like

those 400 year old writers, and run with it as far as I could, in the manner of those classic

essayists. After all, I thought, we have had four hundred years to observe and discuss

those topics, which in turn were subjects developed and discussed by the first human

writers in Africa and the Sumerian deserts. On clay tablets and papyrus. Why should I

not try too? At least I had a laptop.

I was encouraged in this direction by a classmate in the writing course, who picked just

about the most enormous subject a writer could pick Infinity! Mine would not be as

vast, but still pretty big.

Well, the writing process for my assignment started off slowly because I got very busy;

on-going house renovations, one daughters soccer, my other daughters home from their

university to attend a Neil Young concert with their aging parents, a trip to New York

City for a seminar, work, and other life enhancing stuff. But then as I was traveling

plane trips are great for thinking I was reflecting on the fact that today, in the age of

Google and the internet, the circulation of ideas, has accelerated to warp speed. Not just

the exchange of caf society chit chat, but also scientific and technological ideas. The

last four hundred years has seen a massive expansion of science and knowledge. The

fundamental difference brought on by the electronic age, is that this exchange of ideas

now happens in real time.

As I thought about the essay as a form, how it has evolved, I also kept thinking about the

impact of the digital medium. I realized that the subject of my essay had picked me; On

the essay as a form in the electronic age.

In terms of the exchange of ideas, what has happened is the equivalent of the Big Bang.

An explosion of information, bits and bytes flying out into the cybersphere, in all


3/4

directions, from millions of individuals sitting in front of keyboards.

I did some research and learned that in 1958, Theodore Adorno, a German sociologist,

wrote a definitive essay on essay writing. It was called The essay as Form. Even today,

it is considered a classic study of the genre. Adorno wrote in an extremely hermetic

German style. He wrote lengthy tomes on philosophy, sociology, and aesthetics. But in

that essay, he made the argument that the best form of writing is the essay. It embodies

the true form of individual intellectual freedom because it is powerless. The bastions of

institutional science and learning, which he was beginning to rail against, considered the

essay a trivial exercise. It is not scientific research, nor a learned treatise, nor an

empirical statement of fact. It is not a work of art, though subsequently, others have

argued that it is. It is the point of view of the writer, written using the argument of words,

on any topic, in short form. Paradoxically, the essay is also very powerful because of its

weakness as a contribution to scientific advancement. Its power is conferred upon it by

the reader. The reader, and any ensuing social debate, validates the essay. Only the

reader can decide the truth of its content, can distinguish it from lies and propaganda.

That is, assuming an exchange of essays takes place in an open society which allows

freedom of expression, in both speech and writing. Adorno was writing from the relative

safety of North America after having lived through the worst forms of intellectual and

human repression during the Nazi period.

Much has happened in the fifty years since 1958. The massive acceleration of

information exchange facilitated by the internet has contributed to a globalization of

economies and markets. The print media, books, magazines journals and newspapers

have been forced to go electronic, but in doing so have developed audiences and readers

that go far beyond their traditional reach. Google and other companies have monetized

the new medium with an advertising model that helps them make money from this

expansion.

In the Google age, the electronic essayist has tremendous tools and advantages; an open


4/4

forum for publishing, a global reach, an opportunity to engage in real time with her

readers. For research on the topic, there are the search engines, comfortable life

preservers when wading into the ocean of cybersphere..

The essay is a perfect form of writing for this new medium. Its contradictory attributes of

power and powerlessness are amplified in the same way as those other forms of

traditional media print have been. The individual writer has an opportunity to reach

millions of readers. In turn, those readers may choose to engage the writer in an ongoing

dialogue, or totally ignore the authors attempts to get her point of view out into the

public forum.

Theresa Carbonneau.

CNF class, October 28, 2008.

the essay in the electronic age

Documents