Just opened my Twitter account.
I don't get it.
The 140 character forces a discipline. That I get.
But it also enforces superficiality and determined ignorance.
One of the necessary but not sufficient conditions for intelligence of the analytical variety is the willingness to explore, to say, yes, but.
Twitter shuts down just that impulse.
It's a summary sort of thing.
None of the building of case, marshaling evidence, acknowledging the argument of the other side, simply the bottom line.
The media is so corrupt.
Lock her up.
Little Marco.
Corrupt Hillary.
It's ideal for the declarative sentence without supporting detail.
All you have to do is say it's so and it is so.
When you wish upon a star.
Is this what America has become?
Think of a single great American paragraph:
"One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew this interest was somehow the cause of the war...Neither party expected for the war the magnitude and duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other."
Now, here you have, with great economy a summary of the greatest, costliest conflict in our nation's history, told by a man who not only lived it, but was at the center of it. With all the woof and pull of events around him, he cut through it all to state why it happened and addresses some of the fundamental psychology and irony which propelled it. He does all this in 108 words by my count. Pretty amazing writing. Pretty amazing thinking.
How would our 45th President present the same ideas so eloquently and memorably expressed by our 16th, in 144 characters?
"Very big war caused by southern slaves. Nobody expected such carnage. All media's fault."
How far we have fallen.
I don't get it.
The 140 character forces a discipline. That I get.
But it also enforces superficiality and determined ignorance.
One of the necessary but not sufficient conditions for intelligence of the analytical variety is the willingness to explore, to say, yes, but.
Twitter shuts down just that impulse.
It's a summary sort of thing.
None of the building of case, marshaling evidence, acknowledging the argument of the other side, simply the bottom line.
The media is so corrupt.
Lock her up.
Little Marco.
Corrupt Hillary.
It's ideal for the declarative sentence without supporting detail.
All you have to do is say it's so and it is so.
When you wish upon a star.
Is this what America has become?
Think of a single great American paragraph:
"One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew this interest was somehow the cause of the war...Neither party expected for the war the magnitude and duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other."
Now, here you have, with great economy a summary of the greatest, costliest conflict in our nation's history, told by a man who not only lived it, but was at the center of it. With all the woof and pull of events around him, he cut through it all to state why it happened and addresses some of the fundamental psychology and irony which propelled it. He does all this in 108 words by my count. Pretty amazing writing. Pretty amazing thinking.
How would our 45th President present the same ideas so eloquently and memorably expressed by our 16th, in 144 characters?
"Very big war caused by southern slaves. Nobody expected such carnage. All media's fault."
How far we have fallen.
No comments:
Post a Comment