This week’s ideas about commonplace books leads me to reflect on a book that I read recently. William Poundstone’s Head in the Cloud (2016) examines the value of knowing facts in a world where we can quickly Google or search for (and find) answers for everything.

To summarize one of the book’s main points, Poundstone thinks that even though technology does and should reduce our need to memorize facts, we still need some minimum level of memorized facts in order to make sense of the world around us and function well in a society. This makes sense to me, and I feel like the base level of factual knowledge that I see from my college freshman students has declined over the past 15 or 16 years. Of course, there is also the cognitive bias of declinism which I know could be impacting my perspective, but Poundstone’s research does provide data that affirms my anecdotal observations.

Maybe today’s technology affords everyone the choice to use their brain space for something other than fact storage. And maybe this helps to explain why the commonplace seems less common and why we no longer share a set of cultural touchstones or cultural canon the way we once did. However, I think there is something else we should consider as responsible for the disappearance of the common place.

Social media and the nature of new entertainment distribution gives people such a wide variety of content to choose from that it feels more difficult to connect with others the way we (Americans) used to. Influential algorithms certainly play a part in customizing our media/entertainment consumption in the 21^st century, but individual choice within the menus that the algorithms provide each consumer still seems to allow far greater variation in a single person’s reading/viewing/listening profile than was the case a few decades ago.

It is worth accounting for the “viral” nature of the most widely shared internet content like memes, gifs, and Tiktok videos. Could these be forming 21^st century commonplace? I think that is possible, but there is something so short-lived and ethereal about this kind of content that I wonder if a commonplace based on such a corpus is distinctly different from what previous generations shared.

I presented this idea to ChatGPT (after I wrote the above reflection) and the response is below. I like the observation that one’s social media account and corresponding history of shared and liked posts could be considered as their commonplace book. Since I do not participate much with social media, this did not occur to me, but I do keep my own version of a digital commonplace book in youtube, saving and organizing content that I intend to come back to. I suppose my email folders serve the same purpose at times.

ChatGPT:

The concept of the commonplace has a long history rooted in rhetorical tradition, particularly in ancient Greek and Roman education. A commonplace (locus communis in Latin) traditionally refers to a shared idea, theme, or argument that is widely recognized and can be used as a foundation for further reasoning, debate, or persuasion. In classical rhetoric, students maintained commonplace books, which were collections of quotations, maxims, or arguments that they could draw upon when composing speeches or writing.

The Traditional Commonplace

Historically, the commonplace served multiple functions:

• Memory and Invention: It allowed speakers and writers to store useful ideas for future use.
• Shared Cultural Knowledge: It provided a repository of widely accepted wisdom, strengthening arguments by appealing to common values.
• Pedagogical Tool: It was used in rhetorical education to help students develop their ability to analyze and deploy persuasive ideas.

During the Renaissance and Early Modern period, commonplace books became highly personalized and were often filled with excerpts from literature, philosophy, and even scientific texts, reflecting the individual’s intellectual pursuits.

The 21st-Century Commonplace

While the fundamental idea of collecting, organizing, and drawing from shared knowledge remains, the digital age has transformed the commonplace in several key ways:

1. Digital Curation Over Personal Notebooks
   • Instead of handwritten journals, people now use digital platforms like blogs, Twitter, Pinterest, or Notion to collect and organize knowledge.
   • Algorithms curate information, shifting from personal selection to automated suggestion.
2. Fragmentation and Speed
   • Traditional commonplaces were structured collections of ideas meant for deep reflection; today, social media and digital reading encourage more ephemeral and rapid engagement with ideas.
   • Memes and viral trends serve as modern commonplaces, often reducing complex ideas into highly shareable but simplified forms.
3. Community-Driven Knowledge
   • While historical commonplaces were curated individually, modern knowledge repositories (Wikipedia, Reddit, online forums) are collectively built, making the process of knowledge-gathering more communal.
   • Hashtags and online movements function as dynamic, evolving commonplaces.
4. Multimedia Integration
   • Unlike the text-based commonplaces of the past, today’s versions incorporate video, audio, and interactive media, expanding the ways in which knowledge is stored and transmitted.

Fundamental Differences?

Despite these changes, the core purpose of the commonplace—to collect, store, and reuse knowledge—remains intact. However, some fundamental shifts have occurred:

• Authority and Personalization: In the past, commonplace books often relied on established authorities, whereas today, the sources of knowledge are more democratized (but also more prone to misinformation).
• Ephemerality vs. Permanence: Digital platforms prioritize trending ideas that can disappear quickly, whereas historical commonplaces aimed for long-term intellectual reflection.
• Interactivity: The modern commonplace is more participatory, with collective engagement and commentary shaping the content in real-time.