Why Abundance is Good: A Reply to Nick Carr

Kasey Cura and Kyra Mitchell

RWS

Werry

18 November 2014

“Why Abundance is Good: A Reply to Nick Carr”

            In Clay Shirky’s response to Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, he states how he believes that Carr’s premises are correct but how he also disagrees with some of Carr’s points. He agrees that the mechanism of media affects the nature of thought, but he disagrees with how the article seems to be analyzing human thinking and reading when it is actually analyzing human cultures. Shirky states how Carr refers to unrealistic pieces of writing. Carr references War and Peace, which is one of the longest novels and symbolizes the height of literary ambition and readerly devotion. He says that most people these days do not want to read such challenging texts and this it is not very interesting. He agrees with the fact that Carr notes, “we may well be writing more today than we did in the 1970s or the 1980..” but he believes that it has not brought back the ideals of culture during those times. Shirky believes that the main concern in the article is that having lost its actual centrality some time ago, the literary world is now losing its normative hold on culture as well. Shirky compares the “cultural sacrifice in the transformation of the media landscape” with the Internet, to that with the Printing Press. He explains how the evolution of technology always ruins the device and culture that went along with it in the past to that of the future, but that that does not make it wrong. That the culture change comes with the increase is consumption and production, that the introduction of new products, helps society thrive and advance. A concern Shirkly has with Carr’s article is that he understand the Internet, but instead of thinking of ways to help for the future, he is stuck in the past wishing to turn back the clocks. This in Shirkly’s option does nothing, it is not beneficial at all. Shirkly seems to think society is falling into the attitude of William Sayoran, who once said “Everybody has got to die … but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case.” This being said change is inevitable, and thinking we can out smart change or prevent it from happening is foolish. We are just at the mist of what the Internet has to offer, we have to embrace it. That abundance brings on more change in society then scarcity, and the Internet provides us with a lot of information, more than has ever been available before.