Letter Writing

[leafofgrass]

If reading Ray Monk's biography of Wittgenstein has reinforced one thing with me, it is the importance of written communication between individuals. As a know technophobe who resists most attempts to become "digitized"--this being the notable exception--I have frequently been ridiculed or patronized for my disdain of computers. Recently, for

Comments

writing

[seraphimsigrist]

well I do a great deal of correspondence
by email. I do not understand the idea that
this is illegitimate, as it seems to me
emails I receive have as much depth and
intimacy and inner truth as letters ever did.

Re: writing

[leafofgrass]

I wasn't trying to say that e-mail is an "illegitimate" form of communication, just that I tend to find the medium alienating. Mainly, I was interested to see whether or not "my readers" tended to agree with me or not. At this point, it looks like a ssplit decision. It is true, the content of an e-mail can match (or indeed exceed!) that of a letter. It just seems so transient! Plus, I think there is something phenomenologically interesting wthat happens when one is expecting a letter, or when one receives one unexpectedly.

[seraphimsigrist]

interesting. certainly when I first began
to do email I felt that there could
be something lacking, and I have friends
who really never adjusted their correspondence
to it.
But why transitory? I keep letters which seem
to me important and valuable in some way and
probably refer to them more often than I did
the old written ones.
But again it is just my sense, and each
person will differ a little...
+S.

[ironed_orchid]

Perhaps biographers are the people who are really behind gmail.

I did have a lot of mail stored, but then the program died an ugly death, although the bf may have may some back ups at some point.

[leafofgrass]

Forgive my naivety: what's "gmail"?

While a letter may be difficult to throw away, I have no qualms about periodic purges of e-mails in the name of storage space.

[ironed_orchid]

gmail is the new free web based email client from Google that offers a gig of storage. Thus you don't need to delete mail to make more space as it's all stored on their servers.

It's still in testing phase, so you need to be invited to use it, current users sporadically get given invites to offer to their friends. This being livejournal, and gmail being a convient way to deal with lots of notification emails, the gmail_invite community promptly sprang into existence.

[leafofgrass]

Oh, I heard of this. I was immediately against it because they use a certain type of spywareeee to read your e-mails before you open them and then target you with specific ads that pertain to the content of your e-mail. Frankly, that scared me off. As a hotmail user, this may be a bit naiev of me, but I like to at least maintain the ignorance of total strangers reading my correspondence!

[apperception]

Well said. Although I see the problem as being more with things like LiveJournal and AOL Instant Messenger rather than with email. I find email is a good substitute for letter-writing. At least it cramps my hand less. But I don't know anyone who will even keep up a correspondence in email. Pretty sad!

But I agree. There is something special about holding a letter in your hand. I too have saved all the letters that have been written to me.

[leafofgrass]

Instant Messenger certainly. That's why I tend to use it rather infrequently. Livejournal I have mixed feelings about. I have mad several "friends" in the medium and even have written some letters to people! I think the problem is more that it is difficult to find someone who is willing to put forth the effort of maintaining a friendship--and I've admitted to being as guilty of this as the next person. This is also evidenced by the fact that you mention that e-mail correspondence is even difficult to maintain. I just lament that my mail box is no longer filled with loving best wishes, but rather is stuffed with advertisements and bills.

[madamebovary]

people are going for easier things. not only are they not letter writing, they're not reading books, they favor magazines, websites or nothing at all. we've become/were always? a culture of ease.

i just started this sort of letter writing correspondence thing. I've been handwriting thank you notes to quite a few of the professionals that i've met recently. it's cute. i got some nifty cards. but its's still the size of like a postcard.

this all reminds me that i'm not sure i really remember what your address is in SK. can you email it to me? is it a PO box or what?

[jimotron]

I think you've identified some features that are experientially unique for most who have held a pen (at this particular juncture in history) and engaged in western letter writing.

I am in staunch disagreement that there is an inherent problem with a medium (insert, say, e-mail here) that can't be constructively addressed through a broad analysis of the medium itself. I believe there is a serious problem with how secondary education in particular raises understanding of different communicative technologies: this is where your friend Postman and most of the "we should be concerned about content-reception!" camp or the "we should be concerned about these passive visuals" camp become useless and counterproductive

[leafofgrass]

Were you mad at me when you worte this?!? :-)

I see where your comments are coming from, I'm just not so sure they address my central point: receiving a letter is more interesting than receiving an e-mail. There are certain experiential things that happen in "western letter writing"* that don't happen when you get an e-mail. I like those things and feel that they make correspondence more pleasurable. This pleasure is a certaiin joie de vie, pardon my french, that e-mails just don't give. Personally, I think that you are one of the most electronically savvy people that I know, and also one of the more skilled communicators of your medium (hey, if you can call Postman "my firend, I only think that's fair! *wink*). Yet, I don't think there is anthing special about an e-mail from you beside the fact that it comes with your name attached (in the same blue hyperlink that everyone else's comes in). Letters are different. Each one is unique in many different ways, not just in content. Regardless of how much we educate people about

gibson once said: ...no maps for these territories

[jimotron]

Hah! No, I was not [and am not] harboring some forceful anger toward you. However the perspective you're drawing on is something of an academic thorn sticking into the side of some of my current work