Jeff Jarvi:Print is where words go to die

Jeff Jarviz在一篇blog里提出,由于我们在过去给予了书籍过于高的尊敬,当现在其他一切信息媒介都在主动被动的转型的时候,书作为我们传递知识交流思想的载体,在原地踏步却无人指责.

藉此,我们也许该暂时放下对书的盲目迷恋,思考书本原本的意义所在.

Jeff引用Stephen Miller的著作<交谈的衰微史>(Conversation: A History of a Declining Art)的观点:
自由的交谈,才是言语表达的精华所在,才能抵制思想的独裁主义.丰盛自然的大脑体操要远比疲倦呆板的阅读更能让我们受益.
...that free conversation, because it is transient and uncensorable, is the essence of free speech. It was always a threat to authoritarianism. Hence its fascination for the Enlightenment. To Montaigne it was intellectual callisthenics, the “fruitful and natural exercise of the mind” as opposed to the “languid, feeble motion” of reading. . .

Jeff写道:
We believe today that when we put ideas in writing, they are thus preserved. But if the paper they are printed on disappears, so do the ideas. That is what I mean when I say that print is where words go to die. If, on the other hand, ideas are spread from person to person, implanted in their own thought, enhanced with questions and conversation, then they live. So the the written word can be a crutch, sometimes a feint.

文末,Jeff极富理想主义味道地提出The Beauty of This Age的看法:
...the beauty of this age is that technology and connectivity allow us to bring books and the ideas in them back into the conversation, sharing them, challenging them, teaching and learning from them with links.