David Byrne gives a thorough and insightful review of the Kindle and e-books generally. He inspires me to get one of these readers eventually, but I take issue with one of his points:
As with music, sharing things is a way of getting to know one another and a form of reciprocal debt — if I “lend” you my book, you sort of owe me… a book, or something. We’re linked now, which is how we use these things that represent our inner selves — as social connectors. Take that ability away, the ability to exchange stuff that represents us, and I’ll bet some of the “value” of these kinds of e-books goes too… the social interconnectedness value, not the dollar value.”
He makes a mistake here in assuming that the good kind of “social interconnectedness value” of exchanging books depends on their existing in a commodified form. Yes, the e-book gets rid of a certain type of social connection — the reciprocation of fetishized commodities — but at the same time it creates the conditions for deeper and more sustainable types of social connection. E-books’ potential to reduce the commodification of texts can limit our fetishizing of books and thereby open our reading experiences to focus more on the content of the book. When someone gives us a free or pirated e-book, the substance of the gift is not the physical book and its ‘value’ but the gift-giver’s understanding of our needs and desires as well as his or her offer to discuss the book with us. Rather than responding with a commodity of commensurate exchange value, we can think about reciprocating the gift in terms of a meaningful discussion about its content, its relation to our lives, etc. (and then the original gift-giver can give further gifts of engagement in conversation with us). Also, if we can give books to anyone for free, then we can have more reading groups with them, because we can read the same book simultaneously (i.e., I don’t need to lend my copy) and many people can join in. For example, we could organize a reading discussion group with fifteen people on one book (e.g., through a blog or a free school ) and share the e-book with each other for free. Making it cheaper and easier for participants to join is not only convenient but also enables more socially just reading practices, because it makes reading groups (and the resources for learning generally) much more accessible for poor people.
