Stressless analysis

The stressless armchair is an icon of the Norwegian furniture industry. Norway seems to be obsessed with stress, for how can we otherwise explain that the official Norwegian word for the attaché case is “stresskoffert”? That Norwegians work less (paid) hours than most other people, may have something to do with it. But with less stress, we should be well positioned for armchair analysis. Maybe it was George Packer who started the “bloggers in pajamas vs journalists” debate with this good piece back in May. The overall conclusion isn’t hard to agree with – with bloggers around, we still need journalists out on the road and in the streets doing classic reporting work. But the title is probably very unlucky. There can’t be much doubt that many revolutions will be blogged. The orange-coloured events in Kiev a few weeks ago maybe count as a revolution, and they definitely were blogged. So bloggers can be in the streets also. And how many journalists are really out there in the physical world, out of the office? It would be interesting to know the percentage at any given time, my guess is it isn’t particularly high. Which might not be all bad, either. Consider Immanuel Kant, hardly a blogger or a journalist, but definitely analytically inclined. He never ventured further than 125 km from his home in Königsberg, Michael Angele notes in his delightful book “Ankunft Weltende, halb zwölf” (verified by scientists mapping Kant’s bio, including his travels). Relieved from the stress of travelling, Kant could concentrate on thinking and writing. Armchair analysis par excellence.