🐰 Down The Rabbit Hole 🕳️

“The effects of technology are always unpredictable. We may predict a number of direct consequences, but as technology interacts with itself and with human beings, the ultimate outcomes are beyond our comprehension.”

~ Jacques Ellul

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Greetings, dear newsletter subscribers,

Once again, thank you for your patience! In today’s newsletter, we're getting back to Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, in particular Chapter Four, “The Typographic Mind.” We're going to look at the question of the kind of internal world that is cultivated by typographic culture, and how this differs from that which is cultivated by visual culture.

Postman’s description of the Lincoln-Douglas debates and especially of the milieu in which they took place is certainly remarkable for its description of a literate culture that had the capacity to not only listen to debates for hours on end, but also to appreciate the subtleties of the arguments being made. This capacity of everyday Americans to listen for extended periods of time to these kinds of conversations shows how far we have fallen as a culture and as a people.

This is, of course, Postman’s point: with the decline of typographic culture, human attention spans have greatly decreased, along with our tolerance for nuance and more complicated language and argument. Humans have always had a tendency to gravitate to the simple solution and the easiest path forward, so it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that this is the path that we have taken. Technological development and solutions have, of course, drastically increased this process. I am quite sure that Postman would not have been surprised by the Tik-Tokization of our culture, and that he would also have lamented it.

One of the great problems, as I see it, is that this movement is one towards an ever-increasing externality. Rather than cultivating one’s inner world, one is constantly drawn outward, in search of new experiences, rather than inward, and into the cultivation of one’s inner person. The less one cultivates one’s inner person, the less developed one becomes as a unique person. The less one comes to know oneself, the less comfortable one is “in one’s own skin.” Finally, when one’s focus is constantly outward, there is a kind of homogenization with society that takes place. I’d like to spend the rest of this installment looking more specifically at the kind of inner world typographic culture cultivates, and how this differs from visual culture.

“I do not mean to imply that prior to the written word analytic thought was not possible. I am referring here not to the potentialities of the individual mind but to the predispositions of a cultural mind-set. In a culture dominated by print, public discourse tends to be characterized by a coherent, orderly arrangement of facts and ideas. The public for whom it is intended is generally competent to manage such discourse.” (Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, p. 51)

The Inner World of Typographic Culture

Typographic culture is ultimately defined by the written word and the printed text. While there are two main stages of typographic culture: the writing of a text and the reading of a text, they both require similar inner states. Both writing and reading:

1) Require active interpretation, linear thinking, and logical analysis

- Public discourse in such a culture—especially in politics, religion, education, and journalism—tends to be reasoned and evidence-based

2) Emphasize depth and context: Because written arguments unfold over time, print encourages sustained attention, critical thinking, and contextual understanding

3) Favor abstract thought: The process of reading print often detaches the content from immediate visual cues, and thus demands the reader’s imagination and abstract reasoning

- This process also requires that one keep a critical distance: words can be weighed, debated, and interrogated

4) Foster self-analysis and internal dialogue, which often lead to a coherent sense of the self over time

5) Foster the psychological habit of a fixed point of view and a sense of some kind of “objective” knowledge

6) Restructure the mind to think in terms of categories, lists, hierarchies, and logic

7) Have been used historically to cultivate an inner life of contemplation and reverence, especially in the monastic tradition

- This process has the capacity to foster moral response to reflections on suffering, etc.

The Inner World of Visual Culture

Visual culture, on the other hand, is defined by the visual image, whether static or moving. Both static and moving images cultivate a culture that:

1) Emphasizes immediate emotional impact over reasoned discourse

- This bypassing of the rational faculties makes citizens more susceptible to propaganda

2) Favors fragmentation and entertainment

- Television, TikTok, etc. thrive on short, decontextualized segments designed to entertain rather than inform

- Information becomes disjointed and less about meaning, more about sensation, and thus undermines serious public discourse

3) Encourages passivity

- Unlike reading, watching television is a passive activity

- It conditions viewers to expect quick gratification rather than patient reflection

4) Creates a global village of immediacy, simultaneity, and emotional reaction

5) Reverts aspects of our consciousness toward orality—favoring performance, emotion, and context over abstract analysis

- At the same time, visual culture does not offer the virtues of oral culture: the communal filter for filtering out bad information, as well as providing a context within which a given piece of information makes sense

6) Accelerates noise, shortens attention spans, and undermines the spiritual dimension of the self

- Information glut often results in empathy fatigue and emotional passivity, as we’re unable to properly respond to, or address the tragedies we see

Many people have pointed out that modern western culture is going through a mental health crisis. It is difficult to believe that this crisis is unrelated to the shift from a typographic to a visual culture. Mental health requires a stable sense of self, which in turn requires a healthy and deepening self-awareness. Typographic culture lends itself to this process, whereas visual culture actively undermines it. Finally, it’s worth noting that while oral culture would have not generally provided people with this capacity for introspection, one’s sense of self would have been much more profoundly shaped by the intense community life that most people enjoyed prior to the Typographic Age. In the individualistic world created by typography, the burden of understanding oneself lies nearly completely on the shoulders of each individual.

Ok...that's it for today! As I've mentioned before, please join the conversation on my Substack page, on X, or wherever you would like (I am on most major social platforms and will be crossposting).

Have a great week/end...enjoy Neil Postman's excellent book...and reach out if you have any thoughts/questions you'd like to share! We'll be looking at Chapter Five next week.

Warmly,

Herman

PS: Do you know of someone who might be interested in joining our book study? If so, please forward this email on to them!