#213 Missing The Point

Earlier this year, a widely known indie writer named JA Konrath participated in a debate over the following statement:  Amazon is the reader's friend.  JA Konrath agreed with the statement, believing that Amazon has proven over years of consistent business practices that they seek to keep prices low and their customers happy.  Readers, in this instance, qualify as customers.  Scott Turow disagreed with the statement, offering the alternate view that too much power in one entity's hands will not be good for anyone, readers and writers alike.

I watched the debate.  If you haven't seen it, and you care about the changing landscape of literature, then I suggest you watch it as well.  Here is a link, that also includes JA Konrath's thoughts on the debate.

I don't wish to dive into the points of the debate, as Konrath and Turow did a good job of that already.  But I do wish to talk about a problem I've noticed in our political system that this debate exemplified.  The problem is this:  the way we discuss major issues (the debate format) allows us to quibble over the specific words used to frame the argument, instead of focusing on the point of the argument itself.  Turow exemplifies this with his first argument in this debate when he says that Amazon is a company whose first priorities are to make money for its shareholders.  Thus, it cannot be a "friend" to anyone but itself.  Since the debate was framed around the statement: Amazon is the reader's friend, I believe Turow wins this debate on this single technicality.  He is correct.  The fact that it is a company means it cannot be a friend to anything but the bottom line.  Everything else is secondary.

But that misses the point of this gathering.  Konrath and Turow were not getting together to discuss whether or not a business can also be a friend to a particular segment of the population.  The heart of the debate was supposed to focus on whether or not Kindle Direct Publishing is good for readers and ultimately for literature.  Because of Turow's lawyer-esque manipulation of the statement (which he has a right to do under the debate format), no real progress was made in the debate.

I do not fault Turow for this.  I am trying to shed light on the vehicle of discussion, not Turow's specific argument here.  Because I see this technique of focusing on how something is poorly worded is used to ignore the point of a particular discussion, and in the end, no progress is made.