Tuesday, October 07, 2008
On Links
Commenting on Tina Brown's new Daily Beast, Gapper observes, 'Sometimes I get the feeling that journalism will end us as endless links to other things...' The same thought came to me when, while writing an article for The Sunday Times, I found myself trying to add a link. Blogging is, of course, all about links. I can only keep posts as short as I do by using links for information that might otherwise fill a paragraph. I don't have to say 'tin-eared, bestselling author Jeffrey Archer...' etc etc, I just have to do this. But Gapper's phrase 'endless links' raises a theological issue. If the links are endless, where is the ultimate content? One can imagine a link-lined future in which aged thinkers resurrect the Cosmological Argument - where is the Prime Mover, the link that is not a link, the supreme self-sufficiency? All links will be seen to link to God.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Bryan, I had a similar problem when talking about the internet recently. Someone asked "where is the internet?" which is a simultaneously stupid and brilliant question. I texted AQA - another service entirely devoted to unoriginal, linked material - to see if they had an answer. Their reply was unsatisfactory. "It is contained on servers" or something.
ReplyDeleteThe prime mover is dead, it's the links that are the thing... Time for some original reporting, you would have thought.
Hmmn, the internet is just our abstract name or concept for a network of computer networks. In this regard the internet doesn't really exist and is like our concept of God in many ways. It's not that all links lead to God - they are already a part of God - but that each link shows one a different aspect of the divine nature.
ReplyDeleteSo the question is, what kind of God does one have in mind? Alas, it all comes down to advertising on a commercial site. So each link shows one a different and perhaps alluring aspect of Mammon, whereas, say, Facebook is where Narcissus hangs out. Careful with those links.
'tin-eared, bestselling author Jeffrey Archer...'
ReplyDeleteAnd you, sir, can jolly well sod off.
I'm sorry, Bryan, but you are going to have to overcome these superstitions that befit only the stupid. It may be comforting to believe there is a Prime Moving Link, but the objective, testable evidence shows there is only random surfing and survival of the compulsive.
ReplyDeleteThe God Link.
ReplyDeleteAh! Present By His Absence
ReplyDeleteI have just read the Jeffrey Archer piece that you linked to. Is there any chance that you might try to justify your latest sarcastic comment about this writer in the context of this blog entry?
ReplyDeleteI think "The big shock came to discover...' just about does it, Anon.
ReplyDeleteHe does use, a lot of, like, comma's, to say, what he means.
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ReplyDelete