A Hundred Years Hence: The Expectations of an OptimistRussell, T. Baron
Philosophy
A Hundred Years Hence: The Expectations of an Optimist
Russell, T. Baron
Forecasting; Twentieth century -- Forecasts
the penny-a-liner. Many pieces of news will doubtless be photographed
from the small one-man air-carriages, the employment of which, as a
means of recreation, we have already foreseen. [12]
The real "news" of the world will therefore be served up with far more
vividness than even the most feverish present-day journalism dreams
of, and the newspaper will be far more quickly "read," because long
descriptive articles will have gone out of fashion, and a series of
pictures, occupying much more space, but apprehended by the mind with
far greater rapidity, will supply their place. Even in what remains
of the printed word I think that great compression is probable. It
must be remembered that even in the best-educated parts of England
we are hardly through the first generation which universally knows
how to read, and already newspaper-English is taking on a character
of its own, very different from the "journalese" of the old-fashioned
reporters. By degrees a sort of slang, distinguished chiefly by brevity
and conciseness, will evolve itself in the newspapers, especially
those published in large towns--though indeed it is quite evident that
in a few years daily newspapers will be published nowhere else. This
terse, quick language will, after a period of reprobation, be adopted
even by the less progressive newspapers, at first shocked to tears
of indignant printer's ink by the defilement of the mother tongue,
and it will accelerate vastly the task of "running through the paper,"
a task which must, even in the less hurried manners which I foresee for
the future, be made as speedy as possible by the newspaper that would
thrive and increase its circulation. Thus literature, already restive
in an uncongenial wedlock, will finally obtain divorce from daily
journalism. This does not mean that literature will perish. On the
contrary, it will develop. And the periodicals other than newspapers
will excel our own in merit of every sort. They will be permanent,
dignified and, above all, literary. For with the education of the
people really carried to perfection, and with universal leisure,
the result of improved social arrangements even more than of improved
mechanical processes, we shall have a demand for a really intelligent
periodical literature, for really artistic illustrations, which will
make it commercially possible to publish matter that only artificial
endowment could support nowadays.
And shall we be content with it? Certainly not; for the new age will
still be an age of progress, and the very perfection of the periodical
Press will be the greatest of all stimulants to further effort.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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