“The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no limit to this fever for writing; every one must be an author; some out of vanity, to acquire celebrity and raise up a name, others for the sake of mere gain.”
Martin Luther, German Reformation leader, Table Talk, 1530s(?).
Your thoughts?
I think Luther was talking directly about blogs
You can’t put the first comment! CHEATER!
You are SO close to bannination.
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HE WANTS TO BAN ME TO SHUT ME UP! YOU CAN’T STOP THE TRUTH, BABY!
(I didn’t know you could ban people. Feh!)
Yeah, I wonder what Luther would think of blogs. The cost to entry is so low that you get much more unnecessary and bad writing as opposed to books. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of crappy books, however.
I don’t really see the problem with all this writing though. Hopefully the best writing should rise to the top and get noticed, and even the worst writing is probably helpful for the author, if noone else. One great thing about books and blogs is that you don’t have to read the ones you don’t like.
And yet, I can see Luther’s point. It is lame when someone writes a book or starts a blog mainly for the sake of selling paper or advertising, but calling this a great evil seems like overkill.
I read it more as the sheer amount of information was what was evil, not necessarily the mere selling.