Letter-writing
I had a thought the other day… I wonder if the demise of correspondence via letters has resulted in a reduction in significant thought. Here’s the idea:
When long-form letter writing was the predominant means of long-distance communication, you had some astounding exchanges (Descartes’ correspondence with pretty much everyone, for instance). Many great thinkers first detailed their theories in these long letters, and I wonder if the form itself made that more likely. Think about it – when you’re corresponding via letter, longer messages are more efficient (whereas the opposite is true today, with email, IM, and tweets). Longer messages mean more time writing, and more time writing means more time thinking through what you want to say. As a result, then, writing long letters may have helped people think through their ideas more fully before making them public.
If that’s the case, then it very well might be the case that today’s preponderance of short-form communication makes it much less likely that anyone will release a complex idea fully-formed – but the greater frequency (and reach) of their interactions with other people may overcome that deficit. Could it be that letter-writing was waterfall, and email, IM, and Twitter are agile?
(And might this post play into that precise analogy, being far from presenting a fully-formed theory itself?)
I think long-form writing has found other outlets. Blogging, for instance.
Although, the majority of blogs appear to take little thought. I think, when the mood is right, other outlets provide a sufficient medium for cataloging what might be considered ‘epic’ thoughts and ideas.
Tony
21 Jan 10 at 9:51 am
I think you are right about writing long-form pieces regularly in that it encourages thoughts you may not have fully fleshed out. William Zinsser said, “Writing is a form of thinking, whatever the subject.”
I think Twitter and other short forms are too “hand wavy,” letting the author off the hook with half-baked ideas. Putting down sentence after sentence forces you to apply logic and emotion to all the corner cases of your topic, which in turn creates more avenues of discussion.
One side-effect of short-form pieces is that since authors are not writing a full train of thought, any follow-ups often deal more with clarifying what the author was trying to say, or expounding on a confusion of the original topic–neither of which is all that useful. After you read a well-thought out essay or letter, the reader knows exactly where the author stands and can respond in kind.
Nice post–thanks for sharing.
Nolan
21 Jan 10 at 9:58 am