The Essay in the Google age.

One of the assignments given out to my class in a creative (non-fiction) writing course
was “The Essay”, a form of writing made popular by the classical essayists of the 17th and
18th centuries; men (because there were few women) like Edmund Burke, Michel de
Montaigne, Francis Bacon and Blaise Pascal.

The subjects they picked to write about were universal, often philosophical, topics, such
as “”Mind and Style’, “The Sublime”, Truth and Beauty”, and “The Misery of Man
without God”.

These were typical themes of “The Essay” in its classic form. It had to be a topic of
interest to the reader, and back then, it seemed as though readers actually were interested
in universal themes. However, the essay was a popularizing form. It was necessarily
short, written in ordinary language that could be understood by those who had basic
literary skills. It was the individual writer’s point of view, not necessarily that of the
establishment, and it had be true to his thoughts and observations on the topic of choice.
Truth was the writer’s word(s), writing from a place of knowledge, experience and
ethical conviction. In his Pensees, Blaise Pascal wrote in 1660;

“ One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a
rule of life, and there is nothing better.
The vanity of the sciences.-- Physical science will not console me for the ignorance of
morality in the time of affliction. But the science of ethics will always console me for the
ignorance of the physical sciences. “

Because it was short and had a certain entertainment value for the educated classes that
were growing rapidly at the time, the essay became a suitable form for a newspaper or
journal. In the 17th Century, these media were mostly print, newspapers, pamphlets and
books. The circulation of ideas took place slowly, over months and years. Oral exchange
also took place in literary cafes and salons but was confined to where and how long they
flourished.

So I decided that for my assignment, I wanted to pick a very large topic too, just like
those 400 year old writers, and run with it as far as I could, in the manner of those classic
essayists. After all, I thought, we have had four hundred years to observe and discuss
those topics, which in turn were subjects developed and discussed by the first human
writers in Africa and the Sumerian deserts. On clay tablets and papyrus. Why should I
not try too? At least I had a laptop.

I was encouraged in this direction by a classmate in the writing course, who picked just
about the most enormous subject a writer could pick – Infinity! Mine would not be as
vast, but still pretty big.

Well, the writing process for my assignment started off slowly because I got very busy;
on-going house renovations, one daughter’s soccer, my other daughters home from their
university to attend a Neil Young concert with their aging parents, a trip to New York
City for a seminar, work, and other life enhancing stuff. But then as I was traveling –
plane trips are great for thinking – I was reflecting on the fact that today, in the age of
Google and the internet, the circulation of ideas, has accelerated to warp speed. Not just
the exchange of café society chit chat, but also scientific and technological ideas. The
last four hundred years has seen a massive expansion of science and knowledge. The
fundamental difference brought on by the electronic age, is that this exchange of ideas
now happens in real time.

As I thought about the essay as a form, how it has evolved, I also kept thinking about the
impact of the digital medium. I realized that the subject of my essay had picked me; “On
the essay as a form in the electronic age.”

In terms of the exchange of ideas, what has happened is the equivalent of the Big Bang.
An explosion of information, bits and bytes flying out into the cybersphere, in all
directions, from millions of individuals sitting in front of keyboards.

I did some research and learned that in 1958, Theodore Adorno, a German sociologist,
wrote a definitive essay on essay writing. It was called “The essay as Form”. Even today,
it is considered a classic study of the genre. Adorno wrote in an extremely hermetic
German style. He wrote lengthy tomes on philosophy, sociology, and aesthetics. But in
that essay, he made the argument that the best form of writing is the essay. It embodies
the true form of individual intellectual freedom because it is powerless. The bastions of
institutional science and learning, which he was beginning to rail against, considered the
essay a trivial exercise. It is not scientific research, nor a learned treatise, nor an
empirical statement of fact. It is not a work of art, though subsequently, others have
argued that it is. It is the point of view of the writer, written using the argument of words,
on any topic, in short form. Paradoxically, the essay is also very powerful because of its
weakness as a contribution to scientific advancement. Its power is conferred upon it by
the reader. The reader, and any ensuing social debate, validates the essay. Only the
reader can decide the “truth” of its content, can distinguish it from lies and propaganda.
That is, assuming an exchange of essays takes place in an open society which allows
freedom of expression, in both speech and writing. Adorno was writing from the relative
safety of North America after having lived through the worst forms of intellectual and
human repression during the Nazi period.

Much has happened in the fifty years since 1958. The massive acceleration of
information exchange facilitated by the internet has contributed to a globalization of
economies and markets. The print media, books, magazines journals and newspapers
have been forced to go electronic, but in doing so have developed audiences and readers
that go far beyond their traditional reach. Google and other companies have monetized
the new medium with an advertising model that helps them make money from this
expansion.

In the Google age, the electronic essayist has tremendous tools and advantages; an open
forum for publishing, a global reach, an opportunity to engage in real time with her
readers. For research on the topic, there are the search engines, comfortable life
preservers when wading into the ocean of cybersphere..

The essay is a perfect form of writing for this new medium. Its contradictory attributes of
power and powerlessness are amplified in the same way as those other forms of
traditional media print have been. The individual writer has an opportunity to reach
millions of readers. In turn, those readers may choose to engage the writer in an ongoing
dialogue, or totally ignore the author’s attempts to get her point of view out into the
public forum.

Theresa Carbonneau.
CNF class, October 28, 2008.