Reading 3

“I think circling the wagons and defending the fortress metaphors are a little misplaced. The barbarians at the gate are usually willing to negotiate a little, and the guys in the fort usually end up yelling that ‘we are the only good things in the world and you guys don’t understand it,’ at which point the barbarians shrug, knock down your walls with their amazingly powerful weapons, and put a parking lot over your sacred grounds. If they are in a really good mood they put up a pyramid of skulls.”

- Vikram Chandra, as quoted in “Digital Publishing Is Scrambling the Industry’s Rules,” The New York Times, 6 June 2006. Accessed 23 July 2022.