“The New York Times reports…”; “Time magazine ranks it in the top ten of…”; “The NBC poll says…” “Scientists say…”: What do these statements have in common? No real, tangible, identified people. A media entity or group states something, and we listen. But to what (or to whom) are we listening?
Newspapers, magazines, and TV networks are not—I know, this is not profound—entities outside the people in the company. How did we get to an intellectual point where we listen to or take the word of an essentially anonymous source? Thank Gutenberg.
Gradually opening their eyes to new intellectual possibilities in the early Renaissance, Europeans were largely illiterate. Gutenberg, mid-fifteenth century, said, “Try this,” and introduced them to the printing press. Walla! Literacy for the masses! Literacy for you and me. Widespread communications. Communications beyond individual one-on-one interactions. I speak to you from a distance. You don’t need to know me any more than I need to know personally eighteenth-century writer and critic Dr. Samuel Johnson. Boswell tells me about him in his detailed biography. I don’t even know Boswell, but he speaks to me, conveys his thoughts, and influences my mind. And that’s the way with all distant communication. No two people have to be in the same place to communicate with each other. No two people have to be in the same time to communicate. Gutenberg did that for all of us. That’s the upside of a printing press introduced to Europeans about 575 years ago.
But there’s a downside, also. You don’t, as I said, necessarily know me. You read a blog. I communicate. I, a disembodied voice, somehow get into your mind, possibly influencing you, possibly making you think of a topic you had no interest in prior to reading the blog, and possibly effecting change in others through you. All thanks to Gutenberg and the inventions, including the Web, that have become our virtual books. That downside I spoke of? “New York Times reports…” is not a disembodied entity. There are people behind the reporting just as I am behind this blogging. But thanks to Gutenberg, we have taken the entity for the people responsible for it. We don’t know them personally, but we trust that all the disembodied communicators are giving us information germane to our effective living. I call that the Gutenberg Effect. We have transferred or projected the role of individual to entity. We listen to “what” not to “whom.”
Yes, Gutenberg gave us all the ability to communicate beyond personal relationships and beyond interpersonal feeling. That was good in that I can, in fact, open my mind to yours even though you might never want to open yours to mine. I can read Boswell’s eighteenth-century work, maybe learn something, maybe be entertained or inspired without knowing Boswell. But in giving us communication at a distance, Gutenberg also opened us to trust communication from a disembodied entity.
So, the next time you read or hear “such-n-such says” or “such-n-such reports,” ask yourself the one question you should know before you are influenced: Who?
Newspapers, magazines, and TV networks are not—I know, this is not profound—entities outside the people in the company. How did we get to an intellectual point where we listen to or take the word of an essentially anonymous source? Thank Gutenberg.
Gradually opening their eyes to new intellectual possibilities in the early Renaissance, Europeans were largely illiterate. Gutenberg, mid-fifteenth century, said, “Try this,” and introduced them to the printing press. Walla! Literacy for the masses! Literacy for you and me. Widespread communications. Communications beyond individual one-on-one interactions. I speak to you from a distance. You don’t need to know me any more than I need to know personally eighteenth-century writer and critic Dr. Samuel Johnson. Boswell tells me about him in his detailed biography. I don’t even know Boswell, but he speaks to me, conveys his thoughts, and influences my mind. And that’s the way with all distant communication. No two people have to be in the same place to communicate with each other. No two people have to be in the same time to communicate. Gutenberg did that for all of us. That’s the upside of a printing press introduced to Europeans about 575 years ago.
But there’s a downside, also. You don’t, as I said, necessarily know me. You read a blog. I communicate. I, a disembodied voice, somehow get into your mind, possibly influencing you, possibly making you think of a topic you had no interest in prior to reading the blog, and possibly effecting change in others through you. All thanks to Gutenberg and the inventions, including the Web, that have become our virtual books. That downside I spoke of? “New York Times reports…” is not a disembodied entity. There are people behind the reporting just as I am behind this blogging. But thanks to Gutenberg, we have taken the entity for the people responsible for it. We don’t know them personally, but we trust that all the disembodied communicators are giving us information germane to our effective living. I call that the Gutenberg Effect. We have transferred or projected the role of individual to entity. We listen to “what” not to “whom.”
Yes, Gutenberg gave us all the ability to communicate beyond personal relationships and beyond interpersonal feeling. That was good in that I can, in fact, open my mind to yours even though you might never want to open yours to mine. I can read Boswell’s eighteenth-century work, maybe learn something, maybe be entertained or inspired without knowing Boswell. But in giving us communication at a distance, Gutenberg also opened us to trust communication from a disembodied entity.
So, the next time you read or hear “such-n-such says” or “such-n-such reports,” ask yourself the one question you should know before you are influenced: Who?
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