Comments on: [2b2k] Understanding as the deepest driver

By: Euan

Euan — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 07:04:27 +0000

I love the idea of the receding Gutenberg Galaxy Mark but I do worry about the apparently inevitable tribalism you mention and the way that manifests itself on the web. I wonder what reasons we will find to fight wars in the future …

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 00:37:52 +0000

There is a credible argument that I came upon some time ago (and I’m afraid that I can’t remember whose it was) that the literate age described as the “Gutenberg Galaxy” which promoted separation, individualism, objectivity, and distance among people was a historical anomaly unique to Western civilizations. According to that argument, we’re simply getting back on the track from which we were distracted a few centuries ago – being reintroduced to our natural, tribal selves as a species, so to speak.

McLuhan used the metaphor of putting Humpty Dumpty back together again – that all the king’s horses and men (notably, “men”) were all a bunch of specialists who were incapable of holistic, systemic thinking and as such, were responsible for many broken eggs along the way.

By: Euan

Euan — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 20:51:45 +0000

I reckon it has something to do with the egalitarian nature of the hyperlink and the nature of the conversations that ensue. I always remember you saying once “conversations can only take place between equals” and this, I think, is what institutions find so challenging.