Our Culture Doesn't Want Writers

Word Content & What Writing Refuses

This past month, The New York Times reported Steven Rosenbaum’s book The Future of Truth featured both misattributed and fake quotes. Yes. A book about what AI is doing to truth accidentally used made up quotes from AI.

Nightmarish cringe aside, I actually empathize with Rosenbaum. He’s a victim of our moment. The very expert on truth was enchanted by the lure of fictitious frictionlessness. AI enchanted Rosenbaum with hyper-convenience and a glowing book review, but it turned out to be a deadly trap, crushing his credibility.

This is what happens in a world that demands content over thinking, and prioritizes shortcuts over process and patience.

Rosenbaum is far from the only casualty.

Every maker today has the hand of immediacy around their neck, while platforms and egos whisper, “More” into our ears.

Unfortunately, our moment isn’t asking for writing. Because writing is intensive. Tedious. Boring. Words aren’t images. They’re not sounds. And therefore, writing struggles to trigger that juicy engagement — the reactions and remixes — all the things we creators and consumers insatiably crave. We want instant gratification. Immediate payoffs. Returns on investment. We want speed and spectacle.

Writing refuses this.

And this is a problem.

For me — and many others — writing is a form of therapy. Articulation requires an intimate engagement with the world, one’s thoughts about the world, and as a result, oneself. Writing is a process of enlightenment, one of the most powerful ways to understand oneself — although quite a sluggish one. It’s personal. Emotional. Intimate. Intentional. The best writing forces you to wrestle and untangle thoughts. Doing so is why writing works (for the reader and writer.) And amidst this moment’s insanity, we need this contemplation like nothing else.

But this writing process feels under siege by audience capture, pressures for mass-appeal, slippery AI shortcuts, and commercial-optimization. There feels to be so little time or space or invitation for the therapeutic potential of writing.

Our culture doesn’t want writing, it wants word content.

Writing as process is so under pressure that the guy writing a book about the future of truth can’t help but feature AI lies.

The pressures don’t discriminate. They’re everywhere. When you log into Substack — “the platform for writers and culture” — the first thing they show you is a line graph of conversions and money. Substack isn’t just indifferent to thinking, they’re antagonistic towards it, prioritizing live-streams and prediction market integrations. Anti-intellectualism intellectualism. Performative thought as a mindless activity. Who the fuck wants to content-market more content?

Meanwhile, AI has “democratized” prose allowing anyone to become a writer. The number of published books have shot up since everyone got their hands on some LLMs. But while cloud servers can smooth anyone’s half a thought into slick sentences, no one is reminded that good thought comes from sitting with doubt and contradictions and with oneself in unbearable discomfort. This is not “bad.”

Words Aren’t The Point

On a panel about AI years ago, a co-panelist was floored by how their screenwriter friend once had to spend a week self-isolated to draft a single scene. Now, they just need a couple of minutes and an internet connection.

I politely rebuffed “this magic.” Both the screenwriter and panelist had misplaced the value. They were prioritizing the output over the process. Sure you can generate output faster... but that’s only if you value faster output. This is the trap. At the risk of sounding pretentious, for any true artist, thinker, or writer the process is the priority. The strain, the frustration, the writer’s block. For overcoming that toil is more fulfilling than any final draft. Contemplation, challenge and catharsis is where the self-fulfillment and transformation comes from. The AI output feels so empty because it is empty. There was no triumph.

If a tool is exciting because it lets you do less of the thing you don’t want to do... that’s a signal about where your values lie. Not all process must be eliminated because it can be. Of course AI can help, but we must be mindful of the costs.

Rosenbaum got his book. But he likely didn’t get what writing could have given him back. Like therapy, writing isn’t about immediate gratification, but about change through contemplation.

Without process, there are only words. And words for the sake of words were never the point.

You are.

So, for anyone who creates as a form of therapy, let me say, “I feel you.” Not only is the zeitgeist in all its upside-down overwhelm so unbearable, but the very act of metabolizing it now feels “wrong.” That squeeze to take the shortcut, to scale and monetize the work — that squeeze, which makes you feel it’s still not enough output. No. You are not “wrong” for taking the long, meandering, overgrown path. If it feels like the right one, stay on it.

It is.