From Chapter 7: Paper and The Printing Press
| “ | Monopolies of knowledge had developed and declined partly in relation to the medium of communication on which they were built, and tended to alternate as they emphasized religion, decentralization and time; or force, centralization, and space. Sumerian culture based on the medium of clay was fused with Semitic culture based on the medium of stone to produce the Babylonian empires. Egyptian civilization, based on a fusion of dependence on stone and dependence on papyrus, produced an unstable empire which eventually succumbed to religion. The Assyrian and Persian empires attempted to comnine Egyptian and Babylonian civilization, and the latter succeeded with its appeal to toleration. Hebrew civilization emphasized the sacred character of writing in opposition to political organizations that emphasized the graven image. Greek civilization based on the oral tradition produced the powerful leaven that destroyed political empires. Rome assumed control over the medium on which Egyptian civilization had been based, and built up an extensive bureaucracy, but the latter survived in a fusion in the Byzantine Empire with Christianity based on the parchment codex.
In the United states the dominance of the newspaper led to large-scale developments of monopolies of communication in terms of space and implied a neglect of problems of time...The bias of paper towards an emphasis on space and its monopolies of knowledge has been checked by the development of a new medium, the radio. The results have been evident in an increasing concern with problems of time, reflected in the growth of planning and the socialized state. The instability involved in dependence on the newspaper in the United States and the Western world has facilitated an appeal to force as a possible stabilizing factor. The ability to develop a system of government in which the bias of communication can be checked and an appraisal of the significance of space and time can be reached remains a problem of empire and of the Western world. |
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Famous quotes containing the words printing press, chapter, paper, printing and/or press:
“The printing press was at first mistaken for an engine of immortality by everybody except Shakespeare.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)
“Once, when lying in bed with no paper at hand, he began to sketch the idea for a new machine on the back of his wife’s nightgown. He asked her if she knew the figure he was drawing. “Yes,” she answered, “the figure of a fool.””
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The printing press was at first mistaken for an engine of immortality by everybody except Shakespeare.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“The Dada object reflected an ironic posture before the consecrated forms of art. The surrealist object differs significantly in this respect. It stands for a mysterious relationship with the outer world established by man’s sensibility in a way that involves concrete forms in projecting the artist’s inner model.”
—J.H. Matthews. “Object Lessons,” The Imagery of Surrealism, Syracuse University Press (1977)