Source: Ralph Nader Radio Hour, January 24, 2016 (starts at 43:16, ends 57:44)
Discussion with Richard Polt, author of The Typewriter Revolution
ANNOUNCER/STEVE: Now, as most of you know, over the course of the last fifty years, Ralph has written a lot of books. I mean, a lot of books. And probably thousands of columns. What you may not realize is that every single one of those books and columns have been written on a typewriter. Well apparently, according to our next guest, Ralph is not behind the curve—he once again is ahead of the curve. Dr. Richard Polt is a professor of philosophy at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. His main interests are the metaphysical and ethical problems of Greek and German philosophy. He has taught lots of courses on a variety of topics, including Plato, Aristotle, Kant, German idealism, existentialism, slavery, time, and Heidegger. But today he’s here to talk to us about one of Ralph’s great loves: typewriters. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Dr. Richard Polt!
POLT: Thank you very much.
NADER: Indeed, this is a delight! I have five Underwood standard typewriters, I only use a standard typewriter. One of my favorites years ago was the Smith-Corona Skyriter, what a durable typewriter that was, that was first sold in 1949. I typed a lot of senior theses for Princeton seniors in the 50s, in order to pay for some of my expenses. So it’s a delight to see that someone has written a book, Richard Polt, to be exact, a professor, called The Typewriter Revolution: A Typist’s Companion for the 21st Century. And it sort of reminds me of neckties. Never throw away a necktie. You get a broad necktie, a narrow necktie, it goes into fashion, but if you hold it long enough all neckties will come back into fashion. Now what you’re saying, Professor Polt, is that typewriters are coming back into fashion. Why?
POLT: It’s true. Well, it’s sort of full circle, except they don’t mean what they used to mean, right? Because they still do the same thing mechanically, but the world has changed around them, so now I think their meaning has changed quite a bit. Now, the typewriter is sort of... like you, a sort of rebel and an individualist, and they’re also perceived as something personal and even romantic sometimes, sentimental, people like to write poetry on them, and they’re an alternative to the standard, which is now, of course, to do things digitally.
NADER: You know, you have a wonderful statement, which basically is titled, “Ten Non-Hipster Reasons to use a Typewriter Instead of a Laptop.” And before we get into that, you claim that you are one of the experts consulted about the fake George W. Bush typewritten documents that fooled “60 Minutes.” Could you explain that?
POLT: Yeah. You might recall that this is the scandal that eventually brought down Dan Rather, unfortunately. But “60 Minutes” ran a story during the 2004 election that questioned the legitimacy of President Bush’s military service, and they produced these documents supposedly written in the early ‘70s ... When I first looked at them, my initial reaction was immediately, well, that was done with a word processor. And a lot of people had the same reaction. It turned out to be a little bit more complicated because in the early ‘70s you did have some very sophisticated typewriters that could do differential spacing so that not every letter takes up the same width, and so on, so it got quite technical, but when all was said and done I had no doubt at all that that was made with a Times New Roman font on a computer.
NADER: Yes, and it was unfortunate because the essence of Dan Rather’s report, that George W. Bush received preferential treatment when he joined the Air Force Reserves, which was not about to head for Vietnam, and was stationed in the South, was true! It was an accurate story, but it had that side to it that was unfortunate [that] you just described. Now I want to go through just a few of the reasons for using a typewriter instead of a laptop, and I want to say that one of the reasons that I use a typewriter is that I don’t like to write a lot of drafts. And when you use a typewriter, you have to erase. And I don’t like to erase. So it imposes a discipline on me to have my first draft as close to my final draft as possible. Whereas when you’re on a computer you can so easily change things and rearrange things so that early drafts may be sloppier than they would otherwise be. Also, when the lights go out, computers shut down. We’re still working—right, Professor Polt?
POLT: That’s right. That’s really satisfying.
[they laugh]
NADER: Okay, one reason you give, sustainability. Briefly, what do you mean by that?
POLT: Well, if you look at how our digital devices are produced and how long they last, if they are made in these factories which often do have some questionable environmental and labor practices, and then they’re obsolete within a couple of years, you know a five-year-old computer or smartphone is a piece of junk. And what happens to that junk? Well, it turns into e-waste and it’s actually treated in a very hazardous way, and along the way of course it sucks up a lot of electricity, so... I’m not a teetotaller about digital devices at all, but they’re certainly not the green machines that people pretend they are. Whereas a typewriter was made a long time ago, and if it’s a manual it’s not going to use any electricity, it doesn’t have to use a lot of paper—there’s a lot of unused or recycled paper that you can just pick up—so it’s very good for the planet, I think.
NADER: And the second reason you give: focus. You say, focus. The typewriter was made to do one thing: type. Explain that.
POLT: Well, this is a really important one for me, because I do teach philosophy, and in philosophy you have to think through an idea and often the going gets tough, intellectually. If I’m on a computer my temptation is to say, Oh, I’ll just check my email, or I’ll check eBay and maybe buy a new typewriter. But if I’m just at the typewriter it’s waiting for me to do one thing, which is work through an idea. And that’s why I like to brainstorm at the typewriter and just see where it takes me. So it’s very good for sustaining attention just on the task of writing.
NADER: Whereas at a computer there are so many distractions. You could even take off and play a video game or something. Or shop.
POLT: Sure.
NADER: Or shop for something. So that’s what you mean by focus with a manual, regular typewriter. Another point you make is privacy, comparing computers with typewriters. Explain that.
POLT: Well, we’ve made a lot of compromises, haven’t we? I think we’re realizing this, thanks to the efforts of Edward Snowden, for instance, we know that anything you do digitally either is, or it can be, automatically collected and analyzed by the government, or corporations, or hackers, and even if they don’t end up misusing your data, and in most cases they won’t do anything with it, not that you know, it still creates this sense that somebody’s looking over your shoulder. I don’t think it’s good for your consciousness. So I, I like to do things that I’m just doing to do them, not in order to be seen a certain way by somebody. So if you really want to be private, I would never put anything really intimate in an email, say, that somebody had typewritten. Or, for that matter, a handwritten letter is still the best way.
NADER: And you point out, “It’s no wonder that top secret agencies, from the Kremlin to MI6, rely on typewriters today.” The next one would make Ralph Waldo Emerson very happy. Self-reliance. Compare typewriters with computers.
POLT: Well, I can understand my typewriter. It took me a while because I’m not a mechanically gifted person really, but I got a little bit braver and started taking typewriters apart, and thinking about them, I found that, yes, I can understand exactly how this works and I can fix it and keep it running for decades. Whereas you really have to be a very specialized expert to understand all of the hardware and software in one of the devices that we use every day.
NADER: Not to mention the fine-print contracts you mentioned.
POLT: Oh, yes, absolutely. So we sign these agreements. Every few days they get updated and how many of us actually read them?
NADER: Another one deals with correspondence. I love this one. Explain correspondence. Typewriters compared to digital communication.
POLT: Well, again, I’m not a teetotaller, and so I use Facebook, to a limited extent. There’s actually a typewriter lovers’ group on Facebook, which is a lot of fun, you can exchange information and pictures and so on, but are those people really my friends? Well, in some cases I have met them, and they are. And in others they’re basically just names to me. So, as I say, we’ve never had more “friends,” but a real friend is hard to find. And a very nice thing to do to a real friend is to send them a unique letter that you’ve typed on your typewriter, and they will be just delighted before they even read the letter, because they know that you went to some trouble.
NADER: For more lore on typewriters there’s a wonderful book that Professor Polt has just put out, 382 pages, called The Typewriter Revolution: A Typist’s Companion for the 21st Century. It’s attracting young people who are turning off the digital world, and getting back to something they can feel and control, and not have their privacy invaded, and on and on, you give a lot of reasons, but I have two quick questions. One is, a criticism of your book—and it’s not you, it’s the designer. Because when I’m leafing through your book, the type is very tiny, and the type is very light, except for the boldface paragraphs and quotes. How did you allow that to happen? I mean, someone as sensitive and as philosophical as you, Professor Polt, will basically tell people, elderly people in particular, Get ready to squint if you want to enjoy my book!
POLT: Ralph, I’m sorry to hear that. I have had one other complaint, but just one. I don’t find it difficult to read myself, but it is a sans serif font and for some people the fonts with serifs, I think regardless of size, are just easier on the eye.
NADER: What’s interesting is the pages are not as clearly written as a typewriter with a modestly new ribbon.
POLT: Well, I’m sorry to hear that that’s your experience of it.
NADER: Okay, well maybe in the next edition you can get together with your designer. By the way, this is a very common situation with designers of published material now. In order to highlight the little quotes in the pages with dark type, they go to the opposite and produce very light type for the bulk of the words on the page, so it’s not just a criticism of your designer, it’s true all over at the present time, where art interferes with function. Now here’s a practical question. Some of our listeners, who use typewriters or want to use typewriters, what about getting, a, ribbons, b, repair services, and c, carbon paper. Are they available other than online? I know you mention it in your book.
ANNOUNCER/STEVE: Antique shops, maybe, Ralph? Could they be in antique shops?
NADER: I just bought my latest typewriter from an antique shop. But other than trying to get this online, are there repair shops reasonably scattered around the country?
POLT: Well, they’re scattered, but they do exist. Unfortunately, if you don’t want to use any online information it becomes more difficult. I do have a website called The Classic Typewriter Page where I have an updated list of repairmen—they’re usually men—around the world, and I have about 200 people in the U.S., so more than you might think, and some of them still have typewriter shops that only do typewriters. It’s a very traditional model, there’s just a few left, others have branched out into other office machines, and others are retired and working from their garage. But they’re out there. And ribbon can often be found at your local Staples or, of course, online, and I think carbon paper can also still be located. So these supplies are not impossible to find at all.
NADER: Anybody under thirty, you say “carbon paper,” they say, “what”?
POLT: Yeah, there’s really kind of an antique...
NADER: Steve, did you...
ANNOUNCER/STEVE: I was going to say, it’s delightful hearing both of you “geek out” over typewriters here. I happen to know that there’s a celebrity, I don’t know if you know about this, Doctor, that Tom Hanks is a big typewriter aficionado. Were you aware of that?
POLT: I was. I’ve never gotten a chance to meet him and talk to him about it, unfortunately, but he will write letters to people on his typewriter, he’ll keep score at baseball games on his typewriter, and I hear he’s planning a book of short stories that no doubt he’s going to write on his collection of hundreds of typewriters.
NADER: I think you may have touched on an important point. When I send letters to people they know it’s on a typewriter, and they feel flattered. It’s like, “Oh! He actually typed the letter to me!” And I think you can get through to people more if you actually type a letter to them rather than do it digitally. What do you say about that?
POLT: Oh, absolutely. It’s very impressive. Because part of the message the typewriting sends today is that you took the trouble to do something in a way that’s a little bit slower, a little bit harder, a little more individual, and people appreciate that. Another thing that comes to mind is another celebrity who I recently discovered loves her typewriter is Lady Gaga. The famous musician. She has been photographed composing lyrics on her Underwood portable.
NADER: Well, more people are going gaga over typewriters, Professor Polt...
POLT: That’s right.
NADER: And your book is going to help this. I can’t even describe how delightful the book is, it’s got pictures of typewriters old and newer, it’s got cartoons, it’s got quotes from people, it’s got so many things. You can just read a little at a time and you’re in a completely different world than you’re being enveloped in the digital virtual reality world. So it’s a refreshing exploration. For those of you who are so modernistic that you pooh-pooh this, just think of it as you would think about exploring a cave. Call yourself a spelunkering explorer of the world of typewriters.
POLT: [laughs]
NADER: Thank you very much, Professor Polt.
POLT: Thank you, and happy typing to you.
NADER: All the best to you.
ANNOUNCER/STEVE: We’ve been speaking with Dr. Richard Polt, author of The Typewriter Revolution. For more information go to typewriterrevolution.com or the Typewriter Revolution Facebook page. So that’s our show. A transcript of this episode will be posted on ralphnaderradiohour.com. For Ralph’s weekly blog, written on a typewriter, go to nader.org.
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