a. By far the most interesting thing about LitCamp was that elephant sitting at the end of the table, the internet. Keith Ridgway was the provocateur on a panel discussion about what the future of publishing will be in the “Digital Age”. General conclusion: nobody knows.

b. Personally I think that publishing as an industry will die the death of a thousand digital cuts, now that the barrier to entry for writers has been lowered to zero by the internet. The only way that writers will be able to make a living is through a) selling rights for viable media such as television, and b) setting up alternative revenue streams on their own terms.

c. More on that later. Let’s not think about the publishing, but about the writing. Writing is a solitary activity. which means that the Web sets up an interesting creative tension between the character of the writer and the requirements of the audience. When I sit down to write, I’m writing for myself, an audience of one who can read back instantly and tell me if he likes it. (Usually he doesn’t.)

d. Contrast this with blogs. Some bloggers might claim to be writing for themselves, but they’re not. If they were writing for themselves, they’d keep a journal, or a text file on their computer. When I write a blog post, I’m superbly conscious that I’m not writing for myself - I’m writing for somebody out there. Guaranteed publication = guaranteed self-censorship for anybody with any sense of dignity.

e. So this process of writing is profoundly different to that first type of writing, because when you’re writing online there’s the expectation of interaction. If you blog, you’re looking for comments; or for links from other blogs citing you; or at least people whispering behind your back.¹

f. Either way - interaction or validation - neither of those are true of “creative” (ahem) writing, the sort of writing where you try to push out 2000 words of a novel per day for 60 days. How could it be? I second-guess myself all the time as it is, continually criticising and cajoling and confusing myself about my own writing - imagine if I had other people reading my stuff in real time! I’d never get anything done!²

g. Yet the tension is there. Why did I post that first draft of a poem? Why am I thinking about posting my latest short story in its entirety? I can’t honestly say I’m looking for interaction - once I write the final version of something, I consider it “out there”, like a child that grew up and left home. Comments are nice, feedback is nice, but it’s not really interaction. Is it?

h. So what’s the future of writing in a Digital Age? Where are the new forms of writing, O Future Of The Book? Where can I find innovation in storytelling, Penguin Avatar? Is it all just stale downloads and rubbish websites? Why does nobody hail Geoff Ryman as the first writer to really try something really exciting?

i. I don’t have the answers. Writers with blogs? Try Belinda Webb. Poets with blogs? Try Jay Bernard. Publishers with blogs? Try Michael Bhasker. Nobody has the answers, but we keep on writing anyway.

1. More specifically I have a sneaking suspicion that the real motive behind blogging is the expectation of validation - that other people will read what you’ve written and think or say or write “Hey, I agree with you!”
2. Of course, I don’t get much done as it is, but that’s another story.

I am the bullet, your dream of flying.
My path takes me low across the land
“On wings” - not on wings,
I fly on laws of physics, arc and drop,
Closer like a camera until I can’t hold back
The camera lens bumps his nose
Canned laughter erupts in the kino -

This is not comedy.
I break bone, I break skin,
I break people and I break him,
Just as you wanted.
I am not the dream of flying;
I must be that other dream,
The one that ends in tears.

Far behind me, you forget me,
Your trusted messenger,
The dream you dreamt
Seconds before your finger crooked,
Trigger click and muzzle flash.
Now flip the sight, lock the case,
Now roll on your back and breathe.
You look like him, you know,
The man I killed when you asked me to,
Lying there all loose-limbed on the land.
You know too well that one day
One of my brothers might come for you.

(Unfinished on the train, September 2008)

Imagine that you speak a language that only one other person in the world speaks. You don’t even think about it as a language - it’s just the world you inhabit together. One day you wake up and that person is gone, and that means that your language is gone, as if it never existed. You can’t capture or call it, and words start to fade from the pages of your memory. People tell you - there are other languages in the world. Losing this language - why, that gives you the opportunity to learn one of these other languages instead! It’s true, you can learn another language - but it won’t be the language that you’ve lost, and your tongue will still be silenced. The worst knowledge of all, though, is that as the language leaves you like rain soaking back into the earth, you’re also losing the memory of the person that you spoke it with, the one person who shared that world with you.

I watch his face to see if he understands, but it long ago ceased to matter. I’m dreaming of words that I will never hear again, and inside I weep for the voice that is gone forever.

I love Pakistan; loved it so much, I never wanted to leave. Luckily, the Pakistani authorities felt exactly the same way - they never wanted me to leave either. Let’s take the checks one by one, so you know exactly what to expect:

1. The Bouncers. They check your ticket to make sure that you really have a ticket. Presumably some Pakistanis turn up at the airport with bags packed, but sans ticket - just in case they’re booked on a flight, but forgot. The bouncers also take on the additional responsibility of beating off any members of your extended family who managed to get through airport security.

2. Customs. They rifle through your luggage listlessly; when quizzed, they seem unsure what they’re supposed to be looking for. Once they reach a certain level of uncertainty, they give up. Having removed the entire contents of your suitcase, you must repack everything while the extensive queue behind you grows progressively more bloodthirsty. Once you’ve finished, they’ll scrawl something illegible in your passport and tell you to sod off.

3. Customs (Second Attempt). One pompous ass checks your passport to make sure that his more uncertain colleagues have done their job correctly and scrawled something illegible in your passport. If he’s happy with the level of illegibility, he’ll wave you through imperiously; if he’s not happy, he’ll call all of his colleagues over for a short conference lasting no more than 15 minutes. You may be required to repeat Step 2.

4. Security, Part One. This comprises:

• A large and clearly hazardous scanning machine that occasionally breaks down, leaving your bag trapped inside.
• A scanning machine operator who has come to terms with his mortality and is fully prepared to get inside the radioactive monster to force your luggage through.
• A back-up operator who is ready to take over at a moment’s notice, should his colleague still be inside the machine when it starts again (which would presumably require his immediate hospitalisation, or possibly burial).
• An attractive but unsmiling woman who will check your bag for metal objects, and radioactivity.

5. Security, Part Two. If your bag gets trapped in the machine, it must be dangerous. Therefore it will be searched.

6. Check-in. Finally we get to the actual check-in desks. Service varies depending on the will of Allah. There may be some confusion amongst the airline staff regarding which airline you are flying with, which desk you should check in at, and what they’re supposed to do with this piece of paper you’ve handed them. Use this opportunity to steel yourself for the next series of checks.

7. Embarkation. I hope you remembered to fill out the Government of Pakistan Embarkation Card, because this man wants to take it and stamp your passport. What do you mean, nobody told you about the Embarkation Card? You’ll need to go back to Step 6 (Check-in) and see if they have any left. It is possibly but not likely that your Embarkation Card will be stored alphabetically with the other 8,000 Embarkation Cards he has taken that day.

8. Random Step One. I’m never entirely sure what this guy is doing, and neither is he. Mainly, he wants to see your passport and boarding card. I guess they just gave him a stool and told him to find himself something to do. He seems happy enough.

9. Random Step Two. These guys are in a similar position to Random Step One. The only difference between Random Steps One and Two is that the lucky devils at Random Step Two were given a big desk to be random behind, rather than just a stool. With a dandy flourish, they’ll stamp your boarding card for you, whether you want it stamped or not.

10. Security, Part Three. The scanning machine is smaller, but this is much the same deal as Security Part One (see above). At this point, you will start to experience an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.

11. Security, Part Four. Identical to Security Part Two, above.

12. Clickety-Click. Another stamp on your boarding card AND on your hand luggage tags. What, nobody gave you any hand luggage tags? It’s back to the Check-in (Step 6, above) for you!

13. The Gate. Once you’re into the waiting area, there’s only one gate - but it’s a treat! As per normal airport practice, they’ll check your boarding card when your flight is ready to depart. The catch here is working out when your flight is ready to depart, since announcements tend towards the incomprehensible. At first I thought that this was because the announcements were in Urdu; but when I listened more closely, I realised that they were in English. It was the ancient PA system that made them sound like Urdu.

14. Random Step Three. This man checks to make sure that your hand luggage has been tagged (step 6) and then stamped (step 14). Why does he do this? Who cares at this point. Just let me on to the bus to the plane. No bus today? Fine, I’ll walk. Just get the hell away from me. GET AWAY FROM ME.

15. One Last Check, For Terrorists. You thought you were free. At the steps to the plane, another uniformed guard will check your boarding pass to make sure that you’re not an intruder who has managed to get past the other 14 checks. God knows, if I were a terrorist in Pakistan, I’d pick an easier target. America, or the Moon, or something.

16. Boarding Card, Please. Your soul destroyed, you trudge up the steps to the plane, where an airline steward will check your boarding pass and let you know where to sit. You can breathe a sigh of relief - you have finally managed to leave Pakistan. Unless you’re flying with Pakistan International Airlines; in which case you have another 8 hours to enjoy Pakistan’s rich tradition of service and hospitality.

Dave Steinberg writes a column on How much do we have to care about? with annotations by Ethan Zuckerman. Both of these men are very intelligent, both write very well and both are concerned with how the internet can improve the human condition. So why are both of them so egregiously wrong?

MAKE ME THE OTHER

Dave and Ethan’s worries can be divided into two questions:

The population of Nigeria roughly equals the population of Japan. Yet, the amount of space given to Nigeria by the US news media makes it about the size of Britney Spears’ left pinky toe. Why?

Because Nigeria has virtually no historical connections to the US, almost no strategic value in relation to US interests, and is a long way away. It’s also because the US news media is a terrifying joke, but that’s a more general observation than the topic under discussion.

How can we get past our homophily — the love of that which is like us — to get to xenophilia, which is Ethan’s term for the love of that which is different. How can we change the media agenda?

Of course, the media agenda is not responsible for our homophily – my hunch is that they’re only tenuously related for the purposes of effecting change, since homophily is about as deep-rooted a human instinct as it’s possible to find. It’s not the only deep-rooted human instinct, though, on which more, later.

In fact, they don’t mean how can we love that which is different. In the cosmopolitan stretches of the world, we already love that which is different (what authentic ethnic cuisine would you like tonight?) to such an extent that we forget that most of the world isn’t like that.

THE POWER OF PLACE

What we have difficulty with is that which is distant – that which happens outside our line of sight. But what is inherently good about loving that which is distant? If we invest in this, we run the risk of diminishing our love of that which is closest – our own culture. Given my professional and personal interests, you’ll have a hard time persuading anybody that I’m xenophobic – but I’m not so egocentric that I think that my interests should be everybody else’s interests.

The power of place will continue to exert a hold on human psychology because humans have to live in a physical world where distance and difference matter. The internet may not see those distances (although I think that the internet just reconfigures those distances rather than eliminates them) and the internet may help those already predisposed to xenophilia to get their fix – but the internet isn’t going to make people care more.

CARING IS NOT ENOUGH

Ethan adds:

You might add something about why this “circle of not-caring” matters. My stock examples for this are the genocide in Rwanda, and terrorist training camps in central Asia. We don’t care about these places until it’s too late…

This is where my alarm starts to go off. Who is this mysterious “we” that Ethan is talking about? It would be nice to think that “we” is the community of humanity, but in reality it means “people like me”, which elides into “a particular type of American”. Quite a lot of people cared about the genocide in Rwanda – I understand that most of the population of Rwanda itself got involved – just the “right” people (i.e. those with the power to do anything about it) and not in the “right” way (i.e. to turn caring into a workable policy).

The Save Darfur Coalition has made a huge number of people in the US care about Darfur – yet as far as I can tell, it’s had absolutely no impact on people of Darfur, except possibly to ensure a constant stream of celebrity access). There’s a danger in thinking that caring means anything, because the bad news is that caring – whether a little or a lot – doesn’t mean anything. Acting can mean something, but there’s a danger in action that is just a form of externalized caring – which is what I’d argue a lot of the Save Darfur campaign is.

CURSING THE FAMILIAR

Kwame Appiah’s book, “Cosmopolitanism”… observes that this opportunity to care about fellow creatures in far-flung parts of the world is very, very new. Two hundred years ago, only the most learned city-dwellers would regularly interact with people of other “tribes”.

I’m looking forward to reading Cosmopolitanism at some point in my hopefully long life, but this argument strikes me as being nonsense. The history of civilisation is the history of contact – Europe has been a patchwork of competing factions (tribal or otherwise) for most of its history, as has most of the world. It strikes me that what this idea overlooks the simple facts of history in order to set up a strawman that supports a philosophical theory – but I haven’t read the book yet, so I could be wrong.

I call this “cursing the familiar” because it underplays the significance of local differences purely because they are so familiar. All those differences between different countries, different groups, different towns – they’re simply not different enough. We need something more exotic to get our juices flowing, right? Our own cultures, our own histories, are fascinating enough and need as much attention as Nigerian ninjas (or whatever you find exciting).

This isn’t an argument for parochialism; it’s an argument for recognizing that the familiar is important as well, particularly in a society such as ours where novelty is emphasized at the expense of continuity.

JESUS CALLED, HE WANTS A REFUND

This idea that we might need to care about all of humanity – or at least tolerate them in our interactions – is brand new, and starkly conflicts with basic human impulses – care for our family and tribe and fear the outsider.

This is nonsense. Christianity is 2000 years old, and has exactly this message; so do almost all of the world religions in some form, some more than others, some older than others. I agree that it conflicts with our basic impulses, which is why it hasn’t been particularly successful. However human society and economy are built on tolerating outsiders, so unless Ethan wants to argue that the last several thousand years of human history didn’t happen, it doesn’t seem a particularly strong argument.²

What was so exceptional about Nelson Mandela wasn’t that he was an amazing and vocal leader for black South Africans – it was that he showed compassion and understanding for white South Africans, including deKlerk. Figures who can care across borders are heroes in a very particular and recognizable fashion.

This isn’t quite true, and it reflects a common misperception about what it means to care about the world. We admire people who “care across borders” because of our philosophical and religious legacy. The Christian model of the martyr is the Christ figure, who sacrifices themselves for others – but there’s no value in a sacrifice if it doesn’t actually make things better for other people. Mother Teresa is a good example – widely admired, caring across borders, etc, and demonstrably an utter loss in actually improving people’s condition. We should admire people who make a significant difference in the material condition of the human race, not just those who fit a discredited religious model.

EQUALITY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

But Ethan is not arguing that newspapers ought to cover every village and every family. Rather, our newspapers should equally cover places that are of equal significance, or at least not be so blatantly out of balance. Nigeria’s population is as big as Japan’s, and while its economy is not on a par with Japan’s, it’s of growing importance to us. So, why the disparity? And, more important, how do we remedy it?

“Equally cover places that are of equal significance” is meaningless. What is “equal significance” for economists might not be of equal significance for environmentalists; what is “equal significance” for musicians might not be of equal significance for mountaineers. If there are more musicians out there than economists, does that mean that the musicians’ definition give their interests more significance? The reason why coverage of Israel and the surrounding countries is so prevalent in the US media is precisely because so many people find it significant – you may disagree with them, but what makes your view more “significant” than theirs?

The strength of the internet is to provide a platform where all these slices of significance can be found – and if they can’t be found, you can create your own slice of significance. Saxophone-playing members of the Austrian school who like base-jumping can (and do) generate their own content. But the message is – it’s not up to you, me or anybody else to remedy the imbalance on behalf of anybody else, no matter how offensive we might find that imbalance. The most we can do is to improve the chances of the victims of imbalance to strike back (which is something that I think Global Voices Online does quite nicely).

But, there is a serious dilemma here…Our interest is determined not by what we should be interested in but by what we happen to be interested in.

I find this frankly odd. I’m not sure why this is supposed to be a problem – if our interest isn’t determined by what we happen to be interested in, then what should it be determined by? Who judges what we “should” be interested in – people like Dave and Ethan, who have a higher state of consciousness? For somebody who’s a big believer in the power of collective individual action, Dave doesn’t seem convinced that the wisdom of crowds is working well in this instance, because it collides with his own perceptions.

MORE TRUE THAN ANYTHING ELSE IN THE ARTICLE

Thus, if newspapers or their online replacements become more proportionally accurate reflections of the world, we’ll just skip the sections we don’t care about. That’s what we do already: Everything you ever wanted to know about Nigeria is online, but you haven’t read hardly any of it, have you? Me neither.

You have just answered your own question about why there isn’t more coverage of these places, haven’t you? If you guys, of all people, aren’t interested enough to follow up on Nigeria, then why on earth do you expect the broadcast media to follow it up?

Maybe one conclusion to draw is that good writing is harder than we thought. Or maybe there is more good writing around than we think, but we need help finding it.

I think it’s safe to say that good writing is harder to find than you think. The vast, vast majority of writing on the web is banal dross, cattleprod cant or porn.

As is so often the case, the question isn’t whether the Web has solved a problem but whether it’s helped.

Absolutely true, and it seems clear that it has helped and will continue to help.

But on the Web there are multiple, overlapping personal and social agendas. Which results in there not being an agenda. There is thus no one putting broccoli on our plates and telling us to eat it.

Yet here you are, telling us that we’re not eating enough from the xenophile buffet?

I don’t want to dismiss Dave and Ethan’s concerns, because they are smart and they are engaged and that’s important - yet if I was being cruel, I would have to say that this whole piece smacks to me of annexing the world in the name of entertaining Americans. Mostly, their complaint is that other people don’t share their particular interests - even while they acknowledge that even they don’t share their particular interests (they haven’t read most of the online material about Nigeria, remember).

There’s nothing wrong with being a xenophile, but you shouldn’t expect everybody else to be a xenophile as well. Even if there are Nigerian ninjas involved.

1. However I couldn’t upload them today, so you’ll have to wait. Read anyway.
2. If he’s taking a long-term evolutionary view, then you can argue that several thousand years is still brand-new, but I don’t think he is arguing that.

To spell R-S-V-P
By glass on these letters,
To force us to feel you.
We want to feel something.
Snake fingers through fingers
To bind us together;
One side of the table
Stays cold to the touch.

(Make us regret that
We ever doubted
That you existed
Join hands with us now.)

Your life is a séance
And you are the ghost here.
Now time’s of the essence,
Your essence time, und
Deine Seele ohne Körper
Wann Körper ist alles
We drink to your health, sir,
While toasting your death.

The red curtain twitches,
Chairs rock without warning;
If we’re at the threshold,
Which side do we sit on?
Now beg us to enter,
Now tell us you need us,
Now help us remember,
How much we love life.

May 2007

Unfortunately that just didn’t fit with WFP’s corporate vision, the losers, so I survived in the Airwolf underground for years. However it may not be possible to conceal my true allegiance for much longer, as I am about to place a bid on a full-size Airwolf Replica.

The full size Airwolf replica was made with an existing Bell 222A airframe. The side panels, nose panel and refueling port were all made from the specs from the original Airwolf and are exact. The ADF pod and chainguns are not included in this auction, but will be available if anyone is interested.

You’re damn right I’m interested in the chainguns. For all those pundits wringing their hands about what can be done to help the people of Burma, the answer is a single word - Airwolf.

As I take that first and final step, I wish that Jane was here with me, to hold my hand as I fall. I never dreamed that I could be that selfish. There’s a brief moment where I feel like Wile E. Coyote racing across the abyss, and then friend gravity takes my hand instead. The cars shuffle past like a deck of cards, too fast for the eye to follow. I wish I had never done this, but I remember why I did it. If I had my genie, three wishes in my pocket, and if I was standing up there again -

I would do it exactly the same, and I would regret it exactly the same, and I wouldn’t wish this on anybody. It feels as if I was always waiting, and now everything is happening at once. Each storey is a second less of life, and it takes so long for the seconds to pass. I can’t keep my eyes open. The wind hurts them. And I can’t breathe, the air isn’t in my lungs any longer. Before I close my eyes one last time, what can I see?

A short way down the road below me, there’s a man standing next to a sports car who hasn’t seen me, yet. There’s three council bins, neatly lined up, coming closer and closer. There’s a skip parked outside a building site opposite, full to the brim with twisted metal and concrete blocks, garnished with fast food packaging. A cat jumps from the skip in alarm. It can’t see me but it knows I’m here. The man next to the car sees the cat, and then he glances up and he sees me. He doesn’t look surprised. It seems like he recognises me, but how can I see that when I can’t even focus on my own hands in front of me, how can I see his face so clearly? He smiles. I wish -

I wish -

- now I can’t even remember why I’ve done this. Three wishes, you promised me three wishes -

- I wish.

Oh, Jane. I love you. I -

“One should buy clothes befitting the person one wishes to be, rather than the person one in fact is.”

“That sunset is just phenomenal.  Things are going well for you at work this year.  Mmm, that burrito was a good choice.  You know, these Sunday mornings really are a special time.”

He hates the parrot.  He hears what it’s saying, and he agrees with almost everything (although he wasn’t entirely sure about that burrito), but he just doesn’t… feel it.

He knows that he’ll always have to carry the parrot, and he knows that he’ll never get used to it, and he knows that nobody else will ever understand what he goes through.  He’s absolutely certain about these things right up to the moment when he sees a girl standing on the far side of the room at a party, watching him.

No – she’s not watching him, but watching his parrot, staring very carefully at his parrot as if she can’t believe her eyes.  Here’s what’s funny, though.  His parrot - his parrot has stopped squawking.  He turns his head to look at it – completely silent, completely still, as if it’s been stunned by heatstroke – and realises that it’s staring back at the girl.

He looks back at her, and meets her gaze for the first time, and smiles.  It’s only then that he realizes that his parrot isn’t looking at her at all; it’s looking at the parrot that’s sitting on her shoulder; completely silent, completely still.