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This argument has been made every single decade. Socrates even voiced concerns about writing and how it creates an illusion of understanding. It's been wrong ev

This argument has been made every single decade. Socrates even voiced concerns about writing and how it creates an illusion of understanding. It's been wrong every decade since and is wrong today.

lowracle 9y ago
If we are talking about the same thing, Socrates actually said that writing an argumentation was bad because words are fixed and your adversary can give them interpretations that don't fit what you had in mind. I don't think he was against the technology of writing, he just made a point that is still true today. And it is not because technology has been beneficial in its infancy, that it will keep helping us. Current concerns about technology are supported by scientific facts. Before, it was mainly fearmongering and rumors. (Or was it ? If you have scientific study about the negative effects of technology back then..)
wu-ikkyu 9y ago
"When new technologies impose themselves on societies long habituated to older technologies, anxieties of all kinds result" -Marshall McLuhan There is an element of truth to those anxieties. New forms of media create new spatial relationships that are often destructive to previous forms. So in a sense, new media can be highly destructive of the way people have perceived reality their whole lives: >As I read and contemplated the subject, behold! that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. There was no getting rid of it. It was pressed upon me by every object within sight or hearing, animate or inanimate. The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound, and seen in every thing. It was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm. -Frederick Douglass on learning how to read as a slave (which was illegal)

This argument has been made every single decade. Socrates even voiced concerns about writing and how it creates an illusion of understanding. It's been wrong every decade since and is wrong today.

lowracle 9y ago

If we are talking about the same thing, Socrates actually said that writing an argumentation was bad because words are fixed and your adversary can give them interpretations that don't fit what you had in mind. I don't think he was against the technology of writing, he just made a point that is still true today. And it is not because technology has been beneficial in its infancy, that it will keep helping us. Current concerns about technology are supported by scientific facts. Before, it was mainly fearmongering and rumors. (Or was it ? If you have scientific study about the negative effects of technology back then..)

wu-ikkyu 9y ago

"When new technologies impose themselves on societies long habituated to older technologies, anxieties of all kinds result" -Marshall McLuhan There is an element of truth to those anxieties. New forms of media create new spatial relationships that are often destructive to previous forms. So in a sense, new media can be highly destructive of the way people have perceived reality their whole lives: >As I read and contemplated the subject, behold! that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. There was no getting rid of it. It was pressed upon me by every object within sight or hearing, animate or inanimate. The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound, and seen in every thing. It was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm. -Frederick Douglass on learning how to read as a slave (which was illegal)