COLUMNS
Talk Show 19 with David Ebershoff, Sheridan Hay, Amy MacKinnon, Kirsten Menger-Anderson & Roxana Robinson
/ Jaime Clarke
11.05.08
––Why do you think is behind people’s need to believe it?
Ebershoff: There is plenty of evidence pointing to the book’s demise: studies showing Americans reading less; a flat-to-down trend in book sales; bookstores closing; the competition for leisure time coming from not only movies, television, and music, but now from the ever-expanding internet; and the emergence of the e-book, with all the dislocation it will inevitably bring to our industry. For many people, these are enough reasons to believe the book has only a few last gasps, but I don’t believe that.
Hay: There is obviously a deep and inherent need to believe – to wish – that this isn’t all there is. That we persist in some fashion – that there is not a limit to what we can experience. I think the fact that there is a limit to our lives, to our consciousness, is exactly what grants value to the rest. Perception and its relation to time must be central to mortality; must be a clue to how one can “find the mortal world enough.” It isn’t weak mindedness that drives much of the wish to believe that something of ourselves persists beyond life. I think it is driven by a deep need to avoid pain – the pain of loss.
MacKinnon: Everyone needs to believe in something greater than themselves. I certainly do. We want to believe that if we follow the rules, we will be spared or rewarded, that our faith in the party or the god or a lover will be met with the response we seek. It’s too difficult to think otherwise, too hopeless. It would be an enormous comfort to know that we were taken care of and loved unconditionally by something, that politicians truly cared about their constituents – and some do, some of the time – that true love is a state instead of a fluid state of mind.
Menger-Anderson: I think people like to believe that they have control over their environment and bodies. We like to think that we can protect ourselves and that a bottle of hand sanitizer (or a free wipe at the store) is an inexpensive way of insuring that we will not get sick. We want to believe that germs can be wiped away, that we can conquer disease before it even strikes, and that we can contribute to our own well being.
Robinson: Other people feel a need to believe in this for the same reason they believe in all beautiful otherworldly phenomena, like the Tooth Fairy. Why not believe in the Tooth Fairy, if you can? I think people simply long to see it: a vivid bloom of luminosity, mysteriously lighting up the cusp between day and night, vitality and darkness, being and non-being. Oh, you know what I mean. It's gorgeous and unknowable: of course they want to see it.
Ebershoff: There is plenty of evidence pointing to the book’s demise: studies showing Americans reading less; a flat-to-down trend in book sales; bookstores closing; the competition for leisure time coming from not only movies, television, and music, but now from the ever-expanding internet; and the emergence of the e-book, with all the dislocation it will inevitably bring to our industry. For many people, these are enough reasons to believe the book has only a few last gasps, but I don’t believe that.
Hay: There is obviously a deep and inherent need to believe – to wish – that this isn’t all there is. That we persist in some fashion – that there is not a limit to what we can experience. I think the fact that there is a limit to our lives, to our consciousness, is exactly what grants value to the rest. Perception and its relation to time must be central to mortality; must be a clue to how one can “find the mortal world enough.” It isn’t weak mindedness that drives much of the wish to believe that something of ourselves persists beyond life. I think it is driven by a deep need to avoid pain – the pain of loss.
MacKinnon: Everyone needs to believe in something greater than themselves. I certainly do. We want to believe that if we follow the rules, we will be spared or rewarded, that our faith in the party or the god or a lover will be met with the response we seek. It’s too difficult to think otherwise, too hopeless. It would be an enormous comfort to know that we were taken care of and loved unconditionally by something, that politicians truly cared about their constituents – and some do, some of the time – that true love is a state instead of a fluid state of mind.
Menger-Anderson: I think people like to believe that they have control over their environment and bodies. We like to think that we can protect ourselves and that a bottle of hand sanitizer (or a free wipe at the store) is an inexpensive way of insuring that we will not get sick. We want to believe that germs can be wiped away, that we can conquer disease before it even strikes, and that we can contribute to our own well being.
Robinson: Other people feel a need to believe in this for the same reason they believe in all beautiful otherworldly phenomena, like the Tooth Fairy. Why not believe in the Tooth Fairy, if you can? I think people simply long to see it: a vivid bloom of luminosity, mysteriously lighting up the cusp between day and night, vitality and darkness, being and non-being. Oh, you know what I mean. It's gorgeous and unknowable: of course they want to see it.