Kant also knew a thing or two about publishing

An unexpected forerunner of this little corner of Il Foglio, Immanuel Kant wrote a letter of similar length in 1798 “on the production of books” (you can find it in his *Writings on History, Politics and Law*, translated by Filippo Gonnelli for Laterza, 247 pp., 18 euros). Addressing the publisher Friedrich Nicolai, he recognised, with surprising modernity, that “reading everything has become an almost irreversible and universal need” and that, consequently, publishing should be regarded as “a sector of industry” that made a profit by producing books, that is, “by assessing and calculating the public’s taste”. Consequently, according to this startling little page, “the publisher need not take into account the intrinsic content and value of the goods he publishes”, but only “the market in which, and the tastes of the moment towards which, the ever-ephemeral products of the printing press may find, if not a lasting, at least a rapid sale”.

Here we have a premature Kant, an apologist for romance novels, books about poo and self-help manuals sold by the kilo; yet he is also a staunch ideologue of freedom, capable of asserting that the successful publisher, like any manufacturer or trader, is a good citizen because he makes business flourish by carrying out ‘a public activity that is in harmony with the freedom of the people’. Kant was also an ideologue of responsibility; which is why, on that very same day, he sent a somewhat longer letter to a writer, reproaching him – without delving into details – for the sloppiness, frivolity and harmfulness of his latest work, written solely to pander to a crude audience. Curiously, this was none other than Friedrich Nicolai, who published his own books (we boast so much, yet we have invented nothing, not even self-publishing). This anecdote may prove useful to those authors who complain about the state of the publishing industry, essentially arguing that, if the product is poor, the fault lies with the publisher. It is worth recalling that two hundred years ago Kant explained that what makes circus performances despicable is not ‘the one who runs the show, but the one who plays the role of the clown’.