The 18th Century Meets the 21st Century

This e-mail exchange between Dr. Randall Monty and myself:

Me: “Can you add Graduate Recruiting to the schedule?”
Monty: “Absolutely.”
Me: “Been listening to Hume lately. He's got me convinced that nothing is absolute.”
Monty: “One of these days, we'll get you into the twentieth century!”
Me: “Bud, I'm living in the future. The Twenty-First Century.”

Monty was kidding me about my habit of listening to what has been derisively referred to as “dead, white males.” And I often think he has a point. There’s so much interesting stuff out there. But, of course, 21st Century writing isn’t in the public domain, so isn’t available on librivox, the website I download audio books from, and Amazon doesn’t record audio for the books I’m interested in, because they don’t sell enough to justify the expense.

The exchange between Monty and myself made me think about the intersection of the 18th Century, when Hume wrote, and 21st Century technology that makes it possible for me to listen to his words. What I do wouldn’t be possible in the 20th Century. Librivox just celebrated its 10th anniversary this year. They didn’t exist in the 20th Century. Neither did the smart phone that allows me to access their site while running. True, I remember listening to cassette recording on the thirty-minute drive to school every day back in the 20th Century. But I wasn’t a runner then.

So, the technology of the 21st Century makes it possible for me to connect with a mind from the 18th Century in a way I would not be able to in written form. I’m not simply talking here about the convenience of being able to get some good reading in while I’m running. If all I was looking for was more reading time, I would listen to these writers on long drives as well. But I don’t, though I’m not sure why there is a difference. Ah, but there does seem to be a difference.

I’m not arguing something as strong as the “oral” theory of Havelock or Ong. Nevertheless, there are some writers, and some writing, that opens up when heard. Plato is one such writer, Aristotle only sometimes so. The Nichomehean Ethics listens well, The Topics less well, Prior Analytics, not at all. William James’s Pragmatism is a delight to listen to; Essays on Radical Empiricism is almost incomprehensible, even though I read it long before I tried to listen to it. Kant? Impossible.


Why those differences, both between listening and reading, and between various authors and works? I’m not entirely sure. When I first started listening to Plato, I thought his writing was accessible because the dialogues were written to be heard; the dialogue format encourages us to be listeners rather than readers. After listening to other writers who are firmly entrenched in textuality, I’m not so sure. Perhaps I’ll eventually come up with a theory. Perhaps not. I will keep running and listening though.