The quote from Hemingway has always been well-liked. It foresaw some elements of the Tipping Point-popularized complex systems theory. Remember when we believed that MySpace, which benefited from a network effect in the middle of the 2000s, was impregnable? It slowly and then suddenly lost ground to Facebook. (Perhaps Mark Zuckerberg should pause before prioritizing TikTok over personal connections on Facebook, giving a rival the chance to address the company’s original focus on friends and family.)
However, I think there is a stronger explanation for the term’s current pervasiveness, and that is the pervasive dread that goes along with the perception that civilization is disintegrating. Check out these recent citations:
“America’s democratic backsliding is like Ernest Hemingway’s famous observation on going bankrupt,” wrote Financial Review in a piece about a potential civil war in the US.
The post-Roe environment, as described by Bloomberg Opinion: Democracy is similar to how bankruptcy was described by Ernest Hemingway.
According to The Statesman, political bankruptcy is equivalent to what Ernest Hemingway said about financial bankruptcy.
The climate crisis is another area where years of warning signs have finally materialized into actual danger, and Mike Campbell’s smug observation also applies to it. Finding a report on the environment that doesn’t open with poor Mike detailing his decline from solvency is practically impossible.
Yes, commentators and social critics have always had access to Hemingway’s quotation. But as our glaciers and democracy seem to be collapsing all at once, a passing remark in a 96-year-old book has become our symbol and is permanently etched on the tips of our tongues. Initially gradually, and as of late, suddenly.
Time Traveling
In my column Telecomputing for Popular Computing in June 1983, I discussed some early attempts at online fiction writing. (Yep, during Reagan’s first term, I was handling that beat.) Naturally, I used Hemingway as an example, mocking the master in my introduction to a column that is now titled “archaeology.”
