Persecuted moral authorities
Sun 4 Mar 2012, 5:31 pm
From the November 11, 2011 TLS review by David Finkelstein of Michael J. Everton’s book The Grand Chorus of Complaint: Authors and the Business Ethics of American Publishing:
In the nineteenth century, American publishers were rarely viewed positively. They were vilified as thieves and predators engaged in the systematic business of “cutting each other’s throats,” to quote a late-century commentator. Yet contemporary publishers saw themselves less as villains than as merchants of culture and civility, using self-serving rhetoric that linked culture and competition, moral virtue and economic wealth.
. . .
Everton offers an unusual perspective on this issue, focusing on the bombastic debates over natural and moral rights that took place in American circles at mid-century. His perspicacious conclusion is that in this case, opponents of unethical publishers used language as a weapon to cast authors as persecuted moral authorities in a land dominated by crass commercial interests.
Yes. Some of the issues are different this time around, but let’s just substitute “libraries” for “authors” in that last paragraph and see how far it can go.
- License:
- File under: Publishers Hate You
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