Has Google Search Replaced The Adventurer & The Adventurer’s Goggles?

Goggles Here is one the best defences of reading and old-fashioned, elbow-grease research, that I’ve heard:

“You see, you use a computer, you click on the word, ‘ant’, you get the data, fine. You pick up book and leaf through the pages to find the ‘ant’, you’re going to bump into a saint, an admiral, a poet, a town in Connecticut […] You’re going to learn something outside of the assignment, just because of your own undeniable and most valuable curiosity. You’re going to see a word and you’re going to jump on it. Or its going to jump on you. Then you have it forever.”

(Jack Marcus, “Words & Pictures,” 1:31-1:133)

These are not the words of a troglodyte. They’re the words of a once passionate teacher; a writer who’s finding his way back through the fog thickened apocalypse of his own undoing. The story follows the life and slow redemption of Jack Marcus. Self-medicating his problems with Vodka, the story hints at a long abuse of alcohol and his own alcohol induced abuse. It’s a problem threatening to capsize what’s left of his life. Marcus’ talent suffers. His relationships and the quality of his work careens close to the edge; the precipice of “beyond repair.”

This paragraph occurs late in the movie. With swaggering courage, Marcus emerges from the fog of alcoholism that has numbed him to feeling and seeing the richness of his world. His talent, once bound, is gradually reawakened.

Could this be a long metaphor for a shorter one? That, perhaps, the ease of Google has replaced the adventurers goggles.That which can only be discovered through them is missed. The high road of adventure and encounter is shortened to the instant mechanic of a click.

What we find are suggestions of a system. What we see are paradigmatic projections. Don’t read me wrong, Google can be an adventure. The problem exists when, like Wikipedia, Google search becomes the only resource for research, the only source of adventure.

It’s where Marcus’ words find their relevance and as such, come to life.

“Pick up a book and leaf through the pages […]You’re going to learn something outside of the assignment. […] You’re going to see a word and you’re going to jump on it. Or its going to jump on you. Then you have it forever”

Trailer: Words And Pictures