Link: Doris Lessing warns of inanities of internet - Telegraph.
She might as well complain of the inanities of paper. The medium is not, however clever-clever it might have been to say so, the message. That I may now find from my laptop, that which it would have taken me months and many libraries to research, will not cease to amaze me until I die. Yet already it is utterly banal to my children. Yes, I may find porn on the internet. That, I can also find in WH Smith. Yes, I can find inane, poorly-written literature. That, I can find in Waterstones or in a public library. The internet is neutral. Its content can be bad or good. I love and collect books, but they are no more intrinsically superior to words on a screen than was monks' calligraphy on parchment to the printed word.
What a shame that Lessing should have used the platform afforded to her by her Nobel Prize to say something so utterly stupid.
