CLAL on Culture Archive

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Is Anybody Out There? Writing and the Web

By David Kraemer

I am sitting trying to write my (assigned) piece for CLAL's webzine and find that I am having difficulty getting started. Now, you must understand, I am not a person who ordinarily experiences writer's block. I have written five books and dozens of articles, all with relative ease. I have written assigned pieces for CLAL's annual tribute book, for the Jewish Theological Seminary's magazine-even (in the recent past) for this webzine-and I have never before experienced the kind of internal resistance I am feeling now. What is this all about?

I think my resistance is a product of my questions concerning the worth of the medium itself. Yes, I know, the web is the wave of the future, the "book" to end all books (some would say, quite literally). The web is the pathway by means of which we will gain access to literature, movies, music-any and all possible information. Indeed, it is the great democratizer of knowledge. No one will ever again control information the way information has been controlled in the past. And this lack of control will apply in two directions, not only from the demand (= consumer) side but from the supply side as well. You want to share your thoughts and opinions with the world? Go right ahead! You can publish whatever you want, whenever you want-and no one will be in a position to "reject" it or send it back for revisions. The great public forum-that's what the web is- is where voices and hearts can come together (or not) in all of their immense multiplicity.

But maybe that's my problem. In the past, what I published had to be "accepted" by an editorial board with the recommendation of outside readers. Not everything could be published, and that suggested that what was published was somehow superior-more important or more thoughtful or more something. Moreover, the published book or article would be read by a quantifiable (and usually identifiable) audience. I could know the circulation of a magazine or journal. The sales figures for each book were forthcoming and precise. Perhaps most importantly, the book would last. It would occupy shelf-space in personal and institutional libraries, where (hopefully) generations of students and other readers could return to it and rediscover what I had to say.

Web publications are different in obvious respects. As noted, anyone can publish anything on the web. We can count the number of "hits" on a site (if we bother), but we don't know who reads what. And the web is ephemeral. At best, a web-published piece will occupy a minute amount of space on some storage medium in the future. But it will be effectively inaccessible. Unlike the library shelf-where the eye might alight on the spine of one of my books in a serendipitous manner-the tape backup invites no fruitful accidents.

I do not think these are (only) the musings of a luddite. And I recognize the problem with my own observations: I have personally been well-served by the elite processes of traditional publication and I am resisting a medium that would eliminate their elite quality. But I still have to wonder what difference this form of publication makes. In the past, a work survived by virtue of its impact-its long-term importance for groups of people who were moved by it. Will such works find expression on the web? Will they survive if they do not become books? Moreover, "canonical" selection was creative selection-in the best sense. What didn't matter was unread and therefore lost. What mattered was read and reinterpreted and hence survived. Crucially, at the end of process, we had less to choose from, and this probably wasn't such a bad thing. But today, there's just so much out there. Who is going to find these few words through the vastness of the web? Who is going to bother reading it when the visuals, on this web-site and others, are more seductive?

I can make the argument both ways. And I truthfully don't know which position is right. So, dear reader, help me. If you have happened across these words and reached the end of this meditation, e-mail me at dkraemer@clal.org. Let me know that it matters. I would like to embrace the new way. But I need to know that I am speaking to someone.