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essais
22 Apr 06
Fischer, Tibor. The Thought Gang. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.
Sitting down in his vast library around 1560 [Montaigne] asked the question: what do I know? His zetetic method: to choose questions and then to skewer together chunks of thought like a kebab, morsels taken from top commentators and cogitators, spiced with a few opinions and experiences of his own. Mr. Database. The interrogator of history and letters. And not giving an answer, but giving them all. . . .
Montaigne’s task was herculean, but possible. Now you could spend your whole life trying to decide where to start. I heard one of the university librarians wistfully talking of the need for a good book-burning dictatorship. There is hardly an epoch or region whose intellectual door I can’t kick down if I want to search for their customs, findings, ruminations. Whether it’s a zaotar or the parasites in a pottoo’s intestine, I can biblio my way in and demand: “Give me your information, hand over your profundities.” My vision is wider, deeper, longer than Montaigne’s. Your whole three score and ten could vanish without a trace in one wing of the university library. There comes a stage with knowledge, like a city, where it becomes unmanageable, where it boils over. And even our data-dogs shepherding facts for us won’t be able to cope. Word overflow. Shelves of neglected books pleading for readers. Shelves, shelves and shelves. The forests are hiding in our buildings. (10)
Posted by pzed on April 22, 2006 at 2.59pm
Categories: fragments, libraries, scripture
