Diebert

WOW! The longest reading thus far! I must say that this particular reading contained a mass of information...lots of note taking. Though interesting, I was surprised to learn that written communication transpired by way of the Church. However, I am not surprised that their dominance in the communications environment had gradually pulled them away from the practices of Church and more towards bureaucracy. “Their juristic education and bureaucratic experience did not tell them how to cope with the emotional religiosity and heretical inclinations of the urban communications.” Being that the Church is an entity designed to spread the word of gospel and a sanctuary of praise and spiritual bliss, its diminished power of written communication and thus its attempt transformation to a corporation verify that absolute dominion over civilization, or operating for profit, is not suited for a place of worship. There were some strange beliefs and practices revealed in the text such as letters themselves possessing a kind of Holy majestic power. Believers during that time wore pieces of parchment with letters inscribed on them for medicinal purposes. The thought of bestowing that kind of power and praise upon random letters sounds a little outlandish but I actually found it to be moreso fascinating than anything else. If you really think about it, words are said to be powerful, but what makes up the words….letters.

….moving on

As epitomized in my previous blogs, it’s no surprise that I apparently have an extreme fascination with technology and get a kick out of comparing it to the readings. Thus, it would be out of the norm to not, in some way, find something in the reading to correlate with today’s topmost method of communicating.

Let’s start with a quote from the reading…

“The printing press did not arrive on the European scene like a flash in the dark, but was the product of slow, converging social pressures for more efficient communications.” ----a statement that captured my interest early on in the reading, I thought it to be an appropriate parallel to a portion of our discussion in class relating technology with culture. From my understanding of the diagram that was drawn and the discussion, the two elements are directly correlated to one another. As we all know, technology emerged as a result of cultural change. It represents a progression or advancement in our way of living; it innovatively and resourcefully exposes our intelligence and our knack in manipulating and improving things for no particular reason except for mere amusement. But, nonetheless, technology has become somewhat of a byproduct of converging social pressures for more efficient communications. It began as something new and useful as a means of making life less arduous and more entertaining. It provided a more efficient way of keeping people connected with one another as well as a more competent way to obtain information. But as time went on and new technologies emerged along with the new augmented versions of them, it became more of an obsession.

This brings me to one of the questions on our handout,

The press led to fundamental changes in human psychology and social structuring. Do new technologies do this as well? How?

If you haven’t guessed already, my answer is yes. Technology has structured our way of thinking and behaving. I think how is pretty evident especially among college students. Not only has the internet (Google…and maybe others) took the place of going to the library, but I don’t know how many times people have had an epiphany of cell phones taking the place of the personal phonebooks or just simply memorizing phone numbers. How many times have your contacts mysteriously or accidentally gotten erased and you thought you were going to die??