However, I believe that wars like these go on in every field all the time. I don't particularly want to touch on the war on reality just because I think it is ridiculous and don't have much to say about it. The war that I focus on is a little different due to my being an English Major and not having any relation to the science. The war or words and the war on the author is something that have been going on for quite some time. Depending on who you ask somebody might tell you that projects like Teju Cole's "Small Fates" on twitter, A Story as Told through Twitter, is ruining the formulaic view on literature and that literature itself is taking a slow decline into the nonexistent.
While I hope I'm not as melodramatic as that, it is very hard to ignore what I see happening with literacy and the written word. I don't particularly care for Teju Cole, but although his project is something exceedingly new and progressive, I don't hate it for the simple sake that it is not a novel or an essay. There is no sane way to remark that literature does not evolve along with the human race and therefore I don't believe that we can stop how it changes. I think that this particular war should be shifted to focus on preserving what we have had in the past as well as making room for the new.
It's difficult to defend any form of language, art, or literature when the forms are constantly changing. I suppose the only way you can come up against these changes are by acting out against them through your own writing practices (if you're a writer), if not, then by the forms of literature you make the choice to engage in. I don't know anything about Teju Cole and his stories on twitter, but I wouldn't say he's wrong in his utilization of Twitter... it's more likely that our generation will come in to contact with his literary expression than that of Shakespeare's. I think this is a decent example of what we mean when we talk about holding people accountable. However, who is holding us accountable besides ourselves? What other imaginary forces are working against our ability to decide what is right or wrong, good or bad? There are plenty of them, so how do we defend ourselves? Is there a need to defend, or more of a need to be flexible by moving, GROOVING with the times. Meh, I don't really like our time, but as young innovators with the world at our fingertips (literally, I have access to a lot of stuff right now on this computer) I think we can move toward something better. I certainly hold myself to that standard, and while there is fear in our reality, there is also hope.
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