Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing lashes out at the Internet

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Net dumbs us down: Nobel prize winner

Asher Moses
December 10, 2007 - 12:30PM

New Nobel laureate Doris Lessing has used her acceptance speech to rail against the internet, saying it has "seduced a whole generation into its inanities" and created a world where people know nothing.

Lessing, 88, who won this year's Nobel Prize for Literature, lamented the apparent discrepancy in the hunger for books between developing countries like Zimbabwe and the rest of the world.

In August, Elton John, another creative type for whom the internet has opened up a sea of fresh competition, lambasted the web for stifling creativity, even calling for it to be shut down.

"We are in a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned and where it is common for young men and women, who have had years of education, to know nothing of the world, to have read nothing, knowing only some speciality or other, for instance, computers," she said in the speech read out by Lessing's British publisher as she was too ill to travel to Sweden for the Nobel festivities.

She compared her visits to resource-deprived schools in Zimbabwe, where students begged her for books and taught themselves to read using labels on jam jars, to a trip to another school in North London where teachers complained that many students never read books at all and the library was only half used.

Lessing said no one had thought to ask how our lives would be changed by the internet, "which has seduced a whole generation with its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that, once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging etc".

Similarly, author Andrew Keen argued in his new book, The Cult of the Amateur, that the internet was killing culture and assaulting economics.

"[Anyone] can use their networked computers to publish everything from uninformed political commentary, to unseemly home videos, to embarrassingly amateurish music, to unreadable poems, reviews, essays, and novels," Keen wrote in the book.

But Lessing, who becomes the oldest person to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, barely acknowledges the internet's positive side, short of calling it an "amazing invention".

She said little about the opportunity for internet users to freely browse reams of information they may otherwise not have the time or know-how to seek out. She also ignored the fact that blogging has given a voice to millions who would otherwise be writing little or nothing at all.

"In order to write, in order to make literature, there must be a close connection with libraries, books, the tradition," she said.

As people increasingly obtained their information from the internet, a "treasure-house of literature", going back to ancient times, was being ignored, said Lessing.

Lessing, who grew up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), also used the lecture, titled "On not winning the Nobel Prize" to condemn President Robert Mugabe's "reign of terror" and its effects on literature and budding writers in the country. Her work often draws on her experiences in Africa.

Lessing was described by the Swedish Academy, which has awarded the Nobel Prize since 1901, as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny."
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Source: http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/net-dumbs-us-down-nobel-prize-winner/2007/12/10/1197135340009.html

Thoughts?
 
It's like people who criticise the telly for dumbing stuff down. The internet is the single greatest invention for the communication of information and ideas, ever.

Has anyone suggested she wiki anything? :mischief:
 
Move along people, nothing to see here, just another living fossil that does not understand something and feels the need to attack it.

But seriously, it is sad that in this day and age there are still so many technophobic people around. :assimilate:
 
Stupid boring crappy literature whining about Africa and identity poltics and gender relation all the other boring postcolonial feminist stupid crappy crap that she wrote about is what is making us not want to read new books. When good authors start writing for the aesthetic again I'll start reading new books again.
 
I would rather say that our generation is 100 times more informed then her's, thanks to the internet. At least 50%, if not more, of my common knowledge comes from internet articles ad referances.

If it wasn't for MMORPG and myspace, internet would be flawless.
 
I agree with her. I am, this very morning, going to ride in my horse and buggy to my ISP headquarters, take off my wooden shoes, and throw them into the cogs and sprockets and whatnot that run the internet.
 
Rhymes said:
If it wasn't for MMORPG and myspace, internet would be flawless.
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No, it was the downfall of Veronica and Gopher and the rise of http that lead to the internet's downfall. We just need to turn the clock back 20 years and we'll be fine.
 
She compared her visits to resource-deprived schools in Zimbabwe, where students begged her for books and taught themselves to read using labels on jam jars, to a trip to another school in North London where teachers complained that many students never read books at all and the library was only half used.
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So i take North London is a high income neighbourhood with excellent internet access, and the students are overwhelmingly geeks, who spend the day in front of their broadband-equipped computers? Or could there - possibly - be other reasons for the reluctance to read?

I think it's nice that the Nobel Prize for Literature gets the holders due attention in the media. One can only hope the same will be true for winners of the Paralympic games someday.
 
Fifty said:
Stupid boring crappy literature whining about Africa and identity poltics and gender relation all the other boring postcolonial feminist stupid crappy crap that she wrote about is what is making us not want to read new books. When good authors start writing for the aesthetic again I'll start reading new books again.
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Although I wouldn't phrase it like this, I do actually agree with the sentiment expressed.
 
She must have been visiting CFC-OT.... :mischief:

ok, I guess someone has to take the 'pro' side, so let's look at specific comments...


We are in a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned and where it is common for young men and women, who have had years of education, to know nothing of the world, to have read nothing, knowing only some speciality or other, for instance, computers
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I guess this isn't exactly aimed directly at the 'net, but there does seem to be some truth in this. I would agree that with the intense specialization of education these days, we're not exactly churning out well-rounded individuals from our education institutions. I know that in my field (biology), undergrads now can avoid taking english, philosophy, history, and a myriad of other topics in the interest of narrowing thier degree to a specifc topic within thier field, as if the sciences, social sciences and arts had no common ground at all in human thought. There is a case to be made for a further 'fragmentation' of society, if you scientists, politicians, lawyers, etc have less and less common ground in thier education, and less understading between each other. A lot of kids I meet these days seem to wear thier ignorance of other fields almost as a badge of honour.

What does that have to do with the internet? I guess when you have the knowledge of the world at your fingertips, you can use it in one of two ways: to broaden your knowledge of all topics and fields, or narrow your view just to what you want to see, how you want to see it, and when, in effect isolating yourself from viewpoints that you might not initially consider or want to. I think the point being made is that too many people are choosing teh latter use of the net.

And a quote from Keen:

"[Anyone] can use their networked computers to publish everything from uninformed political commentary, to unseemly home videos, to embarrassingly amateurish music, to unreadable poems, reviews, essays, and novels,"
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This I happen to agree with. While the internet has leveling teh playing field of publishing, so to speak, giving a voice to millions that didn't have it before, it also means that the less-informed, less refined trash that used to get passed out on photocopied manifestos now has almost equal footing with those that try to get a more complete view of the world we live in. A neo-nazi, for eg, doesn't have to subject him/herself to mainstream and more accepted news and analysis anymore, and can completely immerse themselves in the close-minded viewpoints of people just like them, reducing the scope of thier world to just what they want to hear, and not what they probably should. In essence, there is little to no 'quality control' on what we read.

So do I think that the internet is evil and should be 'shut down'? :rolleyes: Try again Elton.... To use a tired spiderman quote "with great power comes great responsibility". What we need to be doing is studying and learning how to effectively use this amazing resource, because there is potential for abuse. It reminds me in a funny way of a discussion I had years ago with a friend while watching a scene in Star Trek. If you had a food replicator, that could make any dish in the universe for you, would you be trying something enw everyday, or eating your favourite hamburger every night? Are net users limiting thier 'food for thought' to one dish, day in day out? Some are, I believe...


We need to teach the next generation of internet users the value of books, of radio, of television and weigh them against the value of this behemoth of information, the internet.
 
I do agree with her basic assessment of what is happening in our culture, but I wouldn't lay the blame solely on the internet. It is a place where remarkably little originality comes out, considering the vast amounts of people on the internet, relative to more traditional forms of media (ie. novels).
 
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