Recent, high profile, focus on the "authorship" issue lately has gotten
me thinking. With the new film "Anonymous" in the works (a film claiming our Will was incapable of signing his own name, let alone able to write ANY of the works attributed to him) how much of what James Shapiro says in his LA Times article
about the sea change in attitude toward the "unimaginable" has to do with
exposure?
"A quarter-century ago all this was unimaginable."
..."What then accounts for the reversal? THE FACTS HAVEN'T CHANGED; [my
emphasis]what has is our comfort level with conspiracy theory as well as our
eagerness to seek authors' lives in their works."
I think we can add to that the fact that anyone can "publish" nowadays--even me--who, a few years ago, would never have imagined myself sitting here in front of a computer penning this particular opine.
Granted, the web is of great benefit as an information tool. But how much does
Willy's Worldwide Web-benefit, and how much does it serve to MIS-inform?
"Opinion" can become "Truth" when the fervor to make it so is furnished so many
opportunities. This is particularly the case on the Web, where sound bites
become word bytes. And everyone knows how much truth can reside (or not) in a
sound bite.
I'm pretty sure of what I think about it. I think George Orwell was a
prophet. So great care should be taken with what we "publish"; the words we use, what we intend them to mean, and most importantly, the result we intend from the utility they afford us.
However ironically, sometimes free speech can be a deterrent to free thought, with or without the intention to use it that way.
What do you think? Is the WWW a friend or foe of Shakespeare?
How does that saying go, J? A rising tide lifts all boats, even those piloted by loony birds?
ReplyDeleteI started my blog, truthfully, because I spotted Shakespeare references in the world and had no one to talk about them with. As a computer geek I don't hang with a theatre crowd (not saying the two are incompatible, just that it's not how my circles overlap). Jumping on the net with my voice, however, connected me up to like-minded people all around the world. As a result I've learned more about my subject than I ever would have, and hopefully paid a little of that forward as well.
Now, having said that, I could go back and replace my opening sentence with "I spotted evidence that a highly evolved race of super-intelligent poultry was in fact responsible for 9/11 and was conspiring to get Sarah Palin into the White House", and the all the rest of the paragraph could still potentially be true.
'
I guess I'm not too worried about it. True that the loony theories were not taken as seriously 25 years ago .. but similarly, I'm not sure that 25 years ago any Shakespeare expert would have given me the time of day, without first establishing my academic credentials and what I'd done to earn my opinion on the topic.
Duane wrote...
ReplyDelete"...I could go back and replace my opening sentence with "I spotted evidence that a highly evolved race of super-intelligent poultry was in fact responsible for 9/11 and was conspiring to get Sarah Palin into the White House", and the all the rest of the paragraph could still potentially be true."
Therein lies the danger. Pairing "potential" truth with anything can automatically "potentially" lend credibility, however small, to even the seemingly outrageous. It's the exact methodology--very popular nowadays-- used to promote an untruth, or, more innocently but "potentially" just as destructive, misinformation, which is a direct conduit to the belief in something that's not true at all. JM
May I recommend "Idiot America: How Stupidity became a Virtue in the Land of the Free: by Charles P. Pierce.
ReplyDeleteHis take on this, while aimed mostly at political and religious whackos seems to be relevant in this case.
His basic thesis is:
Any theory is valid if it sells.
Fact is that which enough people believe.
Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it.
Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough.