Gotterdammerung

In years past the occasional article would reach me, foretelling the die out of the reading population and the demise of publishing. I would get scared for a while but quickly settle back into my confidence that nothing too dire would happen during my lifetime (much like my [oh-so-mistaken] conviction that my time period would be pleasantly uneventful historically) and that I would be able to wiggle in somehow and work unmolested in my chosen industry. Outside the safety of school and fully immersed in the Recession, the articles I see now have more of an impact. And I see lots and lots of them. They are both more extreme and more convincing then ever before. They make me equally depressed, or at least they have. But I am beginning to develop a protective scar tissue. Yes, we can all acknowledge that things are increasingly difficult. I don't think anyone can know what will really happen, but there doesn't seem to be any chance of stasis. In a way there is a sort of freedom in acknowledging that. Reading these terrible articles I think now, not, "oh that's so terrible oh my god what will happen," because I've thought that too many times to think it again, but rather "so what will happen? what will we do?" I think this has something to do with the articles themselves also. I've noticed an earnest, if harsh, search for answers and solutions that makes these commentaries something more than the facile shadenfreude of times past. The sense of seriousness associated with what is now the much more real prospect of disaster is at least somewhat helpful. See, for example, Gallycat's impatience with one doomsayer, or this excellent kick-in-the-pants by Lawrence Osborne, or this forward-looking essay on The Urban Elitist, or Richard Curtis' eerily prescient, unearthed essay on returns.

I'm not completely convinced by anyone's vision of the future. Many note how long people have been predicting publishing's death, and how stubborn it has in fact been. I think this time is different, and big things will happen. The Recession, although it didn't actually cause all or most of what's happening now, will force things forward speedily and painfully. Childhood lessons about ripping the bandaid off quickly make me think this is a good thing. I feel sure that books and publishing won't ever completely die off. I can't pin down too many coherent or without-a-doubt objective thoughts on why, but probably the most important is what one pleasantly optimistic Gallycat commentor suggests, "What will save publishing is what began it - the need, the drive, the will of the human being to communicate through story. When all the layoffs and takeovers and "reorganizations" are over, what remains will be what always remains - people desperate to hear and tell their stories," and what editor Mark Tavani reiterates on Notes from the Handbasket, "books are a mere format....the most magical thing about them is the information they convey: the story they contain. The word “book” and the word “story” are not synonymous, just as eight tracks and music are not the same thing. Stories pre-date books by milleniums; and though books might someday go away, story will last as long as our civilization does." Who knows how recognizable tomorrow's publishers will be. At their most basic, though--entities that help diseminate stories--I think they will remain useful and therefore in existence.