Ebook drama!

[elf]

This is *fascinating*. Really. I never get to see real ebook drama; it's usually "oh, I could never give up the smell of real books!" vs "umm, 300 books in my pocket, yay!" And then there's some mumblings on both sides, and they both move on and read books on whatever media tweaks their kinks. But not this time!

I bring you... Alan Kaufman vs Mobileread!

Who, you might ask, is Alan Kaufman? I don't know! Apparently, he's written some books. And he blogs about writerly things. And a little over a month ago, he wrote The Electronic Book Burning, in which he compares ebooks to Nazis:

The book is fast becoming the despised Jew of our culture. Der Jude is now Der Book. Hi-tech propogandists tell us that the book is a tree-murdering, space-devouring, inferior form of technology; that society would simply be better-off altogether if we euthanized it even as we begin to carry around, like good little Aryans, whole libraries in our pockets, downloaded on the Uber-Kindle.

Serious Godwin points for that. In an opening salvo, even. (It's okay, folks, he's Jewish, and that makes it okay for him to compare technological advances to the Holocaust. Erm.)

Mobileread, with its membership of 50,000 ebook aficionados, who range from copyfight fanatics to language purists to casual Kindle readers, are interested in *anything* about ebooks. And ebook author Steve Jordan posted a discussion thread: Kaufman links e-book trend to bookburning, Nazis.

Of the 17 pages of comments, 10 are from the last few days, because Kaufman had to return to a thread that had been moribund for almost a month to post A Statement From Alan Kaufman, author of 'THE ELECTRONIC BOOKBURNING' To My Mobile Read Critics. He makes sure to link back to his original rant essay, in case any of us were incapable of clicking back to the beginning of the thread.)

He has some new things to say!

But this is not a Gutenberg moment: it is a Nuremberg moment--a linguistic and cultural mass murder of the human mind; an economic Krystallnacht against the book, book culture, literacy and human freedom. We are witness to the ghettoization and deportation of our language and literature to the internet,where it will surely perish.

Pixel-stained technopeasant Nazi wretches. Widespread distribution of literature=bookburning! Mobileread promptly hands him the pieces of his ass from several directions. But he can't leave it at that. And, of course, since he has no actual *point* to make, he can't reply to the questions ("where did you get that claim that America is 25% illiterate?") or issues raised--so he makes yet *another* bloggish post in the middle of a long, long thread: A Further Response To His Mobile Read Critics.

For you are merch-juggled children breastfed on marketing strategies hatched before you were born and are so fully inculcated with h-tech propoganda that it is safe to say that with few exceptions virtually your entire generation haven't the capacity to interrogate your own experience vis a vis the addictive, soul-numbing machines that have become mocking substitutes for your human experience.

My, check out the big brain on Brad Alan! And in case you thought his brain was the only thing big about him:

So, I'd like to extend the following invite to any on this site. Lets thumbwrestle for three shirtless private rounds in an alley of my choice, and see who's left victorious: my 6'2”, 200 pound, tattooed, 57 year old military veteran Bronx-born poetry writing streetfighting ass or your nerdy and ignorant Silicon Folly digitized selves.

That's right: you ebook geeks are so pathetic, I can beat you up! (At thumbwrestling. Wouldn't want anyone to accuse me of threatening real assault.) But he is capable of actually replying to a person: Dear FlorenceArt,
Yours is actually the sole reply from among 230 postings here that resonates with me (I have read each and every one: a private survey of e-book readers, to unearth signs of intelligent life: yours is the only evidence that I've so far found). Because insisting that several dozen replies full of insightful discussion points (and a handful of minor wankish digressions) contain no signs of intelligent is a *sure* way to convince people that you're right!

Um. Should I dust off my JF membership and post this to otf_wank?