John Derbyshire: Are Books (& the West) Dying?

The Book: An Elegy

by John Derbyshire 

February 21, 2013

I’m nine months out of chemotherapy and getting back up to speed now. I started reviewing books again: just did Roger Scruton’s latest for the upcoming American Spectator, a couple on different topics for future issues of The New Criterion, and the new Coolidge biography for VDARE.com (this week, unless I miss the deadline). I get all the Coolidge books; I expect to get the next one for review any day now. You write a book about Calvin Coolidge, I’m your reviewer. I don’t mind: I let myself in for it.

All of which has me thinking about books. The thoughts are not happy ones. I have a house full of books. After this recent close encounter with Azrael, I have been glumly pondering the fate of all my books when I finally turn in my lunch pail. For sure the kids won’t want them. Though they are bright and capable, their souls belong to the gadget age; neither reads books. Probably my books will just become landfill. ...

http://takimag.com/article/the_book_an_elegy_john_derbyshire/print#ixzz2LjiRJRjF

     The white authors discussed in and about this essay, except for the ones used as examples of evil, will be increasingly phased out, along with Western civilization itself, as the Third Word continues to pour into and crowd out and vilify the First. Reading any big profound books will also take a nosedive due to cultural differences, regardless of new technologies. 

     I sometimes wonder what part of the death of large city newspapers can be attributed to this. For example, how many Mexicans, Hondurans, etc,  in Los Angeles are going to read, say, some multi-part examination in the L.A. Times on how the U.S. got pulled into a long war in Iraq? One of the few silver linings of the demise of the West is that most of these dying hard-copy newspapers and magazines eagerly lobbied for the third-worldization that is doing them in, by way of  countless PC-slanted stories and pro-open-borders editorials. 

     Note: Have not been able to read all the fine comments on this outstanding article, but the Truman Capote reference by 'world's greatest orator' reminds me of when Capote said of Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road,' "That's not writing. That's typing."