I like this essay on the death of progress a lot, and find that it ties into another recent piece on Greer's own site. Progress is indeed the guiding faith of Western industrial society, and has been for quite some time. If one is falling, the other isn't too far behind, although he's also probably right that we're talking about a process that will play out over centuries.
I just wanted to add my 2 cents on the issue of music formats. Greer attributes the resurgence of vinyl records to their greater richness of sound as compared to digital formats. I'm sure that's a big part of it. Yet there's also the matter of the inherent unreliability of software. If a vinyl record skips you can see why it's skipping and do something about it. If a CD skips, it's just something you're stuck with. You can hope that it might start behaving again, and sometimes it does, but there's nothing you can do to effect that outcome. Of course more people now stream and/or download to avoid the awkwardness of physical media. But that doesn't necessarily solve the problem, and it leads to the possibility of having your music disappear altogether.
I remember reading an interview with Jay Leno where he said that he still collects new motorcycles, but not new cars, because when he opens them up they're all digital parts he can't do anything with. And if I recall correctly this was before he even took over The Tonight Show. Gives you some idea how long this kind of thing has been happening.
2 comments:
Analog-ies :)
The death of progress has been an essential element of Greer's blog posts ever since the beginning of the Archdruid Report. I remember one of his early novels about the next part of our deindustrial future called Star's Reach where a 'ruin man' mines pre-war buildings in the 400th year of our post apocalyptic future. Yes, hundreds of years and maybe longer.
As far as music formats go he has a point regarding the higher quality of sound on vinyl records but the problem is now they've come and gone and come back again has an inbuilt dilemma. Records require a system to play them and turntables haven't been made in bulk for a long time, nor are records themselves manufactured at scale. We've witnessed music as well as movies and books being lost as new technologies appear. In fact I'm still amazed I can buy an ordinary toothbrush. There's no such thing as redundancy for anyone other than the rich - and most of them aren't interested.
Our experience with computerized cars was when we had to rent a car while we waited for Fuchsia to arrive in Victoria. Not that we could consider it anyway, but that was all we needed to know to decide we'd never buy one and that was before EVs. Fuchsia dates from 1994. It's reached the point where many/most young people don't see driving a car a useful skill because they'll never afford one and they can always play Grand Theft Auto. There's always Uber.
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In case you're interested in having a record of The Archdruid Report ('06-17) I found a special archive version here:
https://thearchdruidreport-archive.200605.xyz/2017/03/how-should-we-then-live.html#comments
Again, sometimes my desperation for a decent header works out. :)
I've yet to read Greer's fiction, which I'll have to remedy one of these days. Star's Reach sounds quite interesting. It has a page on TV Tropes. The only novel of his with an article on Wikipedia is Twilight's Last Gleaming, which is set in the nearer future (last year, now) and sounds all too credible.
More people are living by necessity in smaller spaces, and that might also put a damper on sales of turntables. Along with their not being produced in bulk, of course. But vinyl as a format hasn't lost its appeal, even though it appeared to be on the ropes as far back as the 80s, when cassettes and then CDs came along to replace it. The distribution of movies, books, and music can very often be found in the hands of people who don't see or understand their appeal. That accounts for a lot. Toothbrushes might be seen as a comforting note of continuity in our society.
I know lots of people have been won over by cars having backup vehicle cameras. It does seem handy, but there's always a price. The price is that the vehicle can be autonomous from you, the driver, but not the company that makes it or the government that licenses it. Of course I can see the appeal of Grand Theft Auto, working out aggression in a context that keeps it safely apart from everyday life. One hopes, anyway.
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Greer seems to have written a lot about Schopenhauer, and he does so quite eloquently. He's one of the more entertainingly crusty of the 19th century philosophers.
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