Some random thoughts about knowledge and its forms on a Sunday morning. If you’re bored of this stuff, skip to point 6 – I think that’s new-ish.

1. The book is an attempt to understand the world by producing linear narratives. This is predicated upon two things: first, the possibility of a singular perspective from which to write; and secondly the coercive effect of narrative itself that asserts the possibility of a singular or unitary reception. To make a story of something is to say “look, this is how it is”. The linear nature of narrative, the fact that you have to follow along, ‘bring yourself to it’ is part of the way that it convinces you of its argument; it makes you part of it, it ‘produces you as its reader’.
2. This isn’t going anywhere. The need to weave together numerous strands of a complex situation in order to render it comprehensible and manageable will still be vital, largely for the reasons that narrative has been so historically important: it doesn’t just weave bits of information together, it weaves people(s) together. Whether or not it is produced in the form of ‘the book’ or ‘the ebook’ (or the s-book or the iff-book) will remain to be seen. What is certain that the political need for the narratival mode of thinking will remain. That said, with the arrival of the screen, a new challenger has appeared.
3. Yet, at the same time, the movement from the page to the screen is about more than about technological advancement or convenience. After all, the screen is: adaptable, ever-changing, never-static and, rather than being underpinned by the narrative of the book, is predicated upon the database or the network.
4. So, the non-linear, constantly changing nature of the screen and its system of thought makes certain assumptions about knowledge. First, the wiki-like nature of screen knowledge is based on the idea that no singular, unitary analytical perspective exists. It is impossible to provide a comprehensive, complete vision of a given topic, so the aim is instead to provide an entry point that, quite literally, scatters off in an infinity of directions due to hyperlinks. The condensing of forms of  information is not because we are happy with shorter, less robust anaylses now, but because our interpretive perspective has been explicitly fractured and made multiple.
5. Similarly, the adaptability of the form also means that no singular mode of reception is possible. You cannot control how people receive your ideas because you cannot – and could never – control how they will read them or what they will do with them. All you can do is provide someone with one fragmented fraction of a kaleidoscope.
6. These two modes of thought will exist in a constant tension, and will do so for more than just reasons of convenience. Instead, it will be about politics. Mikhail Bakhtin once argued that language use is governed by two forces, the centripetal and centrifugal. The centripetal force is the social pressure that pushes language toward one interpretation and mode: the standard, ‘normal’, accepted version. Centrifugal force scatters language, creating difference and dialects, fracturing language. Something similar will, I think, develop in the competition between narrative and network knowledge. Narrative will be employed to string together knowledge into compelling visions: “this is the future of our nation for reasons x, y and z”. Network knowledge will be used to fracture and reframe: “these are the underpinnings of the idea of ‘a nation’ and this is why they must change”. This will not be about philosophy; this will be about power.
7. There is not an exclusive connection between networks and screens and narrative and paper. It is simply that there is a relationship of knowledge established between modes of expression and particular ways of thinking. The network-y book or narratival web site are both equal possibilities.