The following is intended for the particular as predominately observed by one himself trammeled with the recognition of his insignificance and potential, and the endurance of a great book:
Root driver for environmentalism available in the contrasting perception between the primacy of print media over digital media as artifact.
When confronted with the instinctual reflection on someone that says they’ve written a published or self-published physical book, versus someone that has a voluminous blog—the tendency is to afford primacy to the tangible form. This instinctual response is seen in the corresponding and mediating perspective of reason to begin searching after the particulars for its judgment making. Before reasoned judgment has at its feet the decision between how many users have read or follow the blog, versus if a book is published or just printed and homebound; before we even ask if the content is of any substance, instinct affords primacy to the tangible product. This may shift in later years, however this potential transition in perspective is the heart of this thought process—namely, if we cannot instinctually begin affording primacy to the digital form, there exists inside us still the need to become accustomed to it. We’ve had written records long before wired networks, and in that adjustment lies the question of the permanence available in either media, for those who create wish some little of eternity even if they are simple and joyful, freely expressing.
Though we have seen books burned and lost at the dismay of anyone with curiosity and respect; it has taken other books to help contextualize the burning and destroying of books—wide products of thought which lit fires of insight and experience after Gutenberg. It is the Church’s actions played out in different cultures; it is humans contending with their own supremacy and infancy. Still, with these destructions, water damage, fading, tearing, etc. the form of the physical written record seems to endure—we do not yet have the same trust built with digital forms, though our tactile engagement with them continues to advance. The more commonplace taking photographs becomes, the more the ones made physical seem to take on a greater importance—perhaps because we still see art and statues, but as a species we’ve not had time enough to build the trust with our new digital expressions. Our oldest history with them is still less than a full century and we’re already seeing instability in our thirst for fossil fuels which act as foundation for our digital space.
At the heart of this is permanence and the always looming, potentially edifying, recognition of our own mortality—and we are yet unsure of our ability as a species to keep alive forever the digital records. The systems of digital record depend on more than themselves—there are more complications and so a greater potentiality for error—also the growing need for electrical currents make a hard-drive packed with data preserved for a far future date necessarily yoked with instructions on how to craft the intermediary for its interpretation. By contrast, with books, it’s just up to translation, but the object itself is the artifact; and maybe in holding an artifact, we also realize that perhaps there is some potential in us to leave behind artifacts of our existence when we are dusty lost bones in a hidden future. So we seek to save the planet with alternate energies if we also want to forget any respect for the full experience of engaging with an artifact instead of just drinking up its contents through a digital intermediary; best case scenario, we do both—and we can write books, blogs, and articles about it—enjoying the fruit of thoughtfulness in our action and maturing from our infancy as a species.
