1/7/2024 0 Comments Silent library monkey slapYet, writing with a pen can be slow and frustrating when our thoughts are streaming through our minds like an epiphany cavalcade. Recall Karl Marx’s famous rejoinder to those who see in human nature an eternally unchanging essence: “The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord the steam-mill society with the industrial capitalist”. We might wonder, then, in our era of blaring smartphone videoclips rather than silent library research, what we are to become. The word itself turns into something “typed.” The typewriter tears writing from the essential realm of the hand, i.e., the realm of the word. The latter no longer comes and goes by means of the writing hand, the properly acting hand, but by means of the mechanical forces it releases. Martin Heidegger, almost a century ago, suggested that only writing by hand can truly express what it is to be human: “This history of the kinds of writing is one of the main reasons for the increasing destruction of the word. Physical expression seems perpetually on the wane, however. Like the lost art of cursive or the hipster-approved craft of pottery, there’s an ineffable jouissance attained by tactile expressivity. Traditional keypads contain ample space for flourishes where fingertips meet their mark with a satisfying smack. Did you ever write an AU assignment on a tablet? Me neither! While touch screen keypads might be suitable for kibitzing with family and friends and dolling our faces up with filters ranging from Capuchin Monkey to Octogenarian Granny, nothing beats the tactile nature of a physical keyboard.
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