2 Revolutions

We are in the midst of a revolution and it is remarkably similar to one that took place 500 years ago after the invention of the Printing Press.
According to Roget's Dictionary a revolution is a radical and pervasive change in society and the social structure, especially one made suddenly and often accompanied by violence. While evolution is the gradual development of society and social forms, institutions, etc., usually through a series of peaceful stages. In The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe Elizabeth Eisenstein makes the claim that the printing press became an "agent of change" and brought about a cultural revolution. While historians often point out the impact of literacy on culture, Eisenstein points to the invention of the printing press, not just scribal culture, as a moment of definitive and exponential change.

In an interview, she compares it to the Agricultural revolution saying:

"Chaucer said his clerk needed twenty books to fill his shelf It took ten scribes ... to feed one clerk it's sort of a
little like the agricultural revolution it take ten farmers to feed one city folk after the agricultural revolution it's
one farmer feeds twenty city folk."

After the invention of the printing press, it no longer was an "economy of scarcity" with people "starved" for more books. Instead, books could be easily reproduced, and the number of people who had access to reading materials multiplied. Historians acknowledge that in the sixteenth century there was a huge growth in knowledge, Eisenstein argues that there must be a link between this explosion of learning and printing. How could Marlow and Rabelaise write of the intoxicating pleasure from book reading if they did not have access to books more easily than their predecessors? She explains the scholar no longer had to wander from town to town to look at rare manuscripts, but could stay in one place and consult different books. This allowed more people to take up scholarly pursuits. Access to books created an era of "intense cross referencing between one book and another". The print shop itself became a source of innovative and scholarly work rather than academic institutions alone. Printing encouraged collaborative activities as artists, scholars, practitioners, and theorists worked together and checked each others work. This does not mean that the printing press was used solely for disseminating only scholarly texts, in fact Eisenstein states:


"The new wide-angled, unfocused scholarship went together with a new single-minded, narrowly focused piety.
At the same time, practical guidebooks and manuals also became more abundant, making it easier to lay plans
for getting ahead in this world -- possibly diverting attention away from uncertain futures in this one."


This cultural shift is very similar to what we are experiencing in the digital revolution. Instead of being bound to the printed word we can digitally access limitless amounts of knowledge. Facts can be checked by going to innumerable sites. And the interlinking, and aggregating of information is the standard. Sites like Wikipedia are not unlike the print shop in early modern Europe as people from a variety of specialties are encouraged to contribute and collaborate on entries. Just as learning in that time shifted from the monasteries, academies, to a wider variety of the population, learning today is moving away from the old institutions. Broadcasting ideas is no longer limited to those few scholars, journalists, or politicians with access to old forms of media. Anyone with a computer and the desire to communicate can put their ideas up for the world to see.

I can't help but be reminded of McLuhan's "the medium is the message". Eisenstein acknowledges his book The Gutenberg Galaxy as influencing her thinking. She does not hesitate to assert printings importance to the Reformation and describes it as an "emancipatory force" for the Germans from the papal authority of Rome. Without print, Luther's ideas would not have spread as quickly and garnered the support of a population. Instead Rome not only had to deal with not just one rebel priest, but a group of disenfranchised people. Now world leaders must quell dissension that is spread in seconds across continents. From the election in Iran to our own debate on healthcare, its can't be denied that digital communication is influencing events just by its mere existence.

What informs my thinking as I read more on this subject is that new technologies do change society and culture, but its seems basic human nature stays the same. It seems every age bemoans decline of their society and the evils of (insert medium here). Yet somehow humans adapt, take the things they need and continue to create, learn, and live.