This is an essay in The Culture We Deserve by Jacques Barzun. It is about our Alexandrian society, a term associated with "flexible morals, perfunctory religion, populist standards and cosmopolitan tastes, feminism, exotic cults, and the rapid turnover of high and low fads-in short, a falling away (which is all the decadence means) from the strictness of traditional rules, embodied in character and enforced from within." [pg. 37]#

Another primary sign of these times is reference books, and what they represent: fruitless information and an endless stack of meta-conversation about it.#

The old civilization has piled up works of the mind for centuries-the attic is crammed full-and direct access to the treasures grows less easy, less frequent, as the social revolution brings more and more of the untaught and the self-indulgent out of bondage. At that point the museum is born, and the research library. There, the inmates-scholars and specialists-begin to digest, organize, theorize, and publish reference books. [pg. 37]

This meta-conversation takes a life of its own and becomes the sole reason to read. This is shown when scholars, Jacques specifically mentions historians, write books for each other, not for the general populace.#

Studying text soon turns the searchlight from ideas to words, after which language as a whole seems to hold the secret of all the great questions. Many otherwise sober persons tell us that language is the shaping force of poems and plays; philosophers argue that usage analyzed will answer the riddles of Being; and even scientists turn verbalist when the speak of a genetic "code" or account for disease by supposing "information" to be carried hither and yon by cells or molecules. Information theory, not interested in message, but in the chances of getting its "shape" across, tries to dominate psychology, linguistics, and anything else in which meaning still lurks untouched by abstraction. The point of the game is what we all used to do as children-repeat a word over and over till its meaning is emptied out. [pg. 38]

Jacques points out the main problem is the loss of context and compulsion to ignore things that can be "looked up"...#

So much compiling and disseminating of data in small bundles is, among of things, an orgy of self-consciousness. We seem to live mainly in order to see how we live, and this habit brings on what might be called the externalizing of knowledge; with ever new manual there is less need for its internal, visceral presence. The owner or user feels confident that he possesses its contents-there they are, in handy form on the handy shelf. [...] To say this is also to say that the age of ready reference is one in which knowledge inevitable declines into information. [pg. 39]

Jacques goes on to talk about all the "efforts" made to subsidize language and give advice and guides to writing thoughtfully. This is only needed because people no longer retain context and it is an attempt to turn the side effect of knowledge into information. These guides are often incorrect and have little effect otherwise...#

The main reason why so much advice leads to so little bettering is that the cultural current flows not toward the simple and lucid but the other way, toward the novel and singular at any price. The democratic temper is not less pedantic than the Alexandrian. Modern poets and novelists, aided by advertisers, have shown everybody how to tamper with idiom and meaning and be original by rifling the learned vocabulary. When metaphor has come into daily use as a poor synonym for "its reminds me of," one is not surprised to hear that Senate committee reporting on the CIA thought synecdoche [ed-- n : substituting a more inclusive term for a less inclusive one or vice versa] would be an apt word for concealment. [pg. 44]

Jacques thinks trying to make a case that language mistreats women is very unfounded and weak. This is an example of meta-conversation on words rather than their meanings.#

When on learns that some feminists want to replace words such as history by herstory, one can compliment them on the odd pun but not on their knowledge or prudence. In any case, gender is not sex; the latter is natural, the former notional. In Latin, sailors and poets are feminine in declension; on the continent of Europe, the sun and moon switch gender from one language to another without implications of superior or inferior; in English, both are neuter. And in one African language a woman's breast is feminine if small, masculine if large: it would be foolish to draw political conclusions. Let us reach equity for the sexes on a firmer basis. [pg. 46]

Another result, and final comment, from Jacques is that all this research at the word level produces unreliable statistics that may be taken the wrong way and used as ammunition to murder the language.#

This mechanical reliance on a datum is mistaken for objectivity. One recalls the larger Webster, third edition, in which it is said that many educated Americans throughout the country use ain't in casual conversation. The evidence, when tracked down, was a research paper that found half-a-dozen such speakers somewhere in the Middle West. [pg 47-48]