*Or, "the Republic of Letters."
*"In practice, it was dominated by the wellborn and the rich. Far from being able to live from their pens, most writers had to court patrons, solicit sinecures, lobby for appointments to state-controlled journals, dodge censors, and wangle their way into salons and academies, where reputations were made." (((I don't see anything archaic about that situation. On the contrary, it looks the present-day of state-supported literature in small non-Anglophone countries. It's a quite likely scenario for unemployed British and American journalists. Why write for any "newspaper" – why not just cut to the chase and become a court meistersinger for the Russian mogul that can buy a London newspaper for one pound sterling?)))
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22281
(...)
"The eighteenth century imagined the Republic of Letters as a realm with no police, no boundaries, and no inequalities other than those determined by talent. Anyone could join it by exercising the two main attributes of citizenship, writing and reading. Writers formulated ideas, and readers judged them. Thanks to the power of the printed word, the judgments spread in widening circles, and the strongest arguments won.
"The word also spread by written letters, for the eighteenth century was a great era of epistolary exchange. Read through the correspondence of Voltaire, Rousseau, Franklin, and Jefferson—each filling about fifty volumes—and you can watch the Republic of Letters in operation. All four writers debated all the issues of their day in a steady stream of letters, which crisscrossed Europe and America in a transatlantic information network.
"I especially enjoy the exchange of letters between Jefferson and Madison. They discussed everything, notably the American Constitution, which Madison was helping to write in Philadelphia while Jefferson was representing the new republic in Paris. They often wrote about books, for Jefferson loved to haunt the bookshops in the capital of the Republic of Letters, and he frequently bought books for his friend. The purchases included Diderot's Encyclopédie, which Jefferson thought that he had got at a bargain price, although he had mistaken a reprint for a first edition. ((("Hey look, Madison. I scored the French revolutionary's Wikipedia. Got it bundled-up in butcher-paper for ya. Say hi to Dolly!")))
"Two future presidents discussing books through the information network of the Enlightenment—it's a stirring sight. But before this picture of the past fogs over with sentiment, I should add that the Republic of Letters was democratic only in principle. In practice, it was dominated by the wellborn and the rich. Far from being able to live from their pens, most writers had to court patrons, solicit sinecures, lobby for appointments to state-controlled journals, dodge censors, and wangle their way into salons and academies, where reputations were made. (((You know what we need here? Transparent, market-based literary reputations. You oughta just be able to lay out some cash and *buy* literary reputation, instead of waiting for readers and critics to give you some. No no wait – *securitized, offshored* literary reputations in a shadow-banking system. What could go wrong?)))
"While suffering indignities at the hands of their social superiors, they turned on one another. (((Like THAT has changed any.))) The quarrel between Voltaire and Rousseau illustrates their temper. After reading Rousseau's Discourse on the Origins of Inequality in 1755, Voltaire wrote to him, "I have received, Monsieur, your new book against the human race.... It makes one desire to go down on all fours." Five years later, Rousseau wrote to Voltaire. "Monsieur,...I hate you."
"The personal conflicts were compounded by social distinctions. Far from functioning like an egalitarian agora, the Republic of Letters suffered from the same disease that ate through all societies in the eighteenth century: privilege. (((Do you think our essayist here grasps the fantastic extent of modern income inequality? There are moguls wandering around in private jets with more money than nations. The world's last superpower is crippling itself in a hapless effort to rescue overweening bankers.)))
"Privileges were not limited to aristocrats. In France, they applied to everything in the world of letters, including printing and the book trade, which were dominated by exclusive guilds, and the books themselves, which could not appear legally without a royal privilege and a censor's approbation, printed in full in their text. (((Are you listening, RIAA, MPAA? More laser holograms. Get with the 18th century.)))
One way to understand this system is to draw on the sociology of knowledge, notably Pierre Bourdieu's notion of literature as a power field composed of contending positions within the rules of a game that itself is subordinate to the dominating forces of society at large....
(((Well, yeah, that's one way to think about it – and another way to think about it is to FLEE FLEE FLEE FROM THE LIGHT OF DIGITAL SCIENCE INTO THE PEACE AND SAFETY OF A NEW DARK AGE!!!)))
