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Sivilized
June 27, 2009
Michael Chabon, in an elegiac essay in the new edition of the New York Review of Books, rues the loss of the "Wilderness of Childhood" - the unparented, unfenced, only partially mapped territory that was once the scene of youth. It is by now an old theme, but he gives it a vigorous workout:
As the national feeling of guilt over the extermination of the Indians led to the creation of a kind of cult of the Indian, so our children have become cult objects to us, too precious to be risked. At the same time they have become fetishes, the objects of an unhealthy and diseased fixation. And once something is fetishized, capitalism steps in and finds a way to sell it.
Huck Finn, now fully under the thumb of Miss Watson and the Widow Douglas, spends his unscheduled time wandering the fabricated landscapes of World of Warcraft, seeking adventure.
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Comments
Nich
I read the article "Is Google ..." some days ago, it was great, excellent, breathtaking, stellar.
I am from Iran and in this situation we are dealing with, your article relaxed me a lot
I love the way of thinking when it is beautiful! And the way you go through the globalization is extremely pretty!
God bless you
hossein
Posted by: hossein ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.roughtype.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at June 29, 2009 09:06 AM
Thanks very much for the kind words.
Posted by: Nick Carr at June 29, 2009 11:07 AM
Elegiac perhaps, but the inner landscape that he creates anew beats by a huge margin anything that the World of Warcraft might help one fabricate!
Language after all speaks to us very directly. A world “fabricated” could never match the organic unfolding of a childhood that was mostly unfettered by any direct relationship to technology. Technology that at the very least manages to atrophies the imagination to a point where virtual worlds become a very poor substitute for the real thing!
Regards Alan
Posted by: alan at June 30, 2009 09:36 AM
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Nick's latest book:
"Future Shock for the web-apps era" -Fast Company
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Avatars consume as much electricity as Brazilians
The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock's avatar
Flight of the wingless coffin fly
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The end of corporate computing
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