The Short and Long of It

It seems the topic of artificial intelligence will be with us for some time to come. Like social media that came before, it too is purported to be life altering. In many significant ways, it likely will be. But with each new wave of innovation people have been all too ready to abandon the old, the slow, even the proven.

One notable byproduct of social media is that it tends to reduce communication to shorter and shorter spurts rather than thorough discourse. But life can be complex, and complexity rarely lends itself well to truncated communication.

Remember “long form”? It is comparatively expansive content that helps us deal with complex issues with thoroughness. It is being forgotten with each passing generation for whom the cell phone and stunted communication are never more than a loving glance away.

The art of and ability to create, long form content seems to be going the way of the film camera, phonograph album, and fountain pen. Am I suggesting we return to these as dominant forms? Of course not. Although, while I no longer have a film camera or phonograph turntable, and rarely use a fountain pen, I am one of those who understands and appreciates the unique qualities each still offer.

Worth noting is that, in the bruised and scared world of publishing, we can at least take comfort in knowing that Lapham’s Quarterly, a long form content magazine that gathers historical perspectives on current issues, is returning after a brief hiatus and reorganization after the death of its founder Lewis Lapham last year.

Lewis Lapham was a newspaper reporter and then editor of Harper’s Magazine for over 30 years before founding and launching his namesake magazine in 2006. And he was a superb writer and editor.

His idea for the book-like journal was to delve deeply into a given topic each quarter by reaching back through history and collecting the more significant and informed writings on a topic and publishing them together as a comprehensive treatise.

Timeless topics that will always occupy our thoughts and frame the emotional and intellectual dimensions of our humanness such as Time, Wealth, Love, War, Fear, Happiness, and The Rule of Law, for example, are past topics given the necessary real estate in word count to properly frame their importance and impact on our society and ourselves so that we may understand each with greater clarity and fullness. Whether you engage the publication in hard copy or digitally, the editorial product is well worth the time you invest to read it.

We are seeing the slow and prodigious comeback of the influence and stature of long form, high quality editorial products because of the value they create as forums for cogent and thorough intellectual engagement.

Long form is also a matter of intention. It is the difference between writing Christmas and X-mas, congratulations and congrats, I love you and love ya. In each case, the longer version lands with greater gravitas, sentiment, and meaning than the shorter.