Recently here I mentioned Plato’s description of Socrates’ objection to written media — that the easy ability to record one’s thoughts would be the death of memory.
We have now spent centuries in the world that Socrates feared, and we are very familiar with the costs/benefits of being able to write things down.
With the rise of the internet this debate has gained fresh currency, but now the battleground has shifted: Reading books is more often cast as the responsible and character-building old way, in contrast to the Internet’s ability to provide easy and instant access to information, which is seen as promoting laziness and shallow thinking.
I had an experience recently which reminded me that the discussion is still worth having. A colleague told me about a demo she had made. “And I put it to the music,” she continued proudly, “Of ‘Safety Dance’ by Men at Work.”
“Men Without Hats,” I said. “‘Safety Dance’ was by Men Without Hats.”
We debated the point for a bit, each of us sure we were right. Then she pulled out her SmartPhone and checked on the Internet. It was indeed, as some of you already know very well, Men Without Hats.
And in that moment I realized that she didn’t really know the music of either group. Their names were to her mere phrases, without resonance. Whereas I was extremely aware of the difference in their respective musical styles and legacies, a difference as distinctive as the voice of Colin Hay.
Is it true that we are entering a time when more and more of us think in factoids, without true working semantic knowledge?
Or is this “trend” just an illusion? Perhaps it’s really the same as it ever was, a tired debate endlessly repeated by the talking heads of every generation.
My wife and I were having a discussion that brought up the average number of children per family in Utah. She thought it was around 4, while I was guessing it was no more than 3. After a second I said, “I’ll just go look it up!” and ran off and came back a couple seconds later with the answer. She was furious, didn’t even want to know what I had found out. To her, the actual checking of the facts was a profound violation of the rules of conversation. To her it wasn’t about getting at an accurate view of the world, but having her own view reaffirmed.
I have no idea what most people are thinking most of the time.
You are so very right, and this blog is amazing. If you haven’t yet read Fahrenheit 451, I think you ought to. It talks about the same issues, and has become a very meaningful book to me. I also encourage you to seek out and read the following articles, which have shaped my understanding of the novel.
McGiveron, Rafeeq O. “What ‘Carried the Trick’? Mass Exploitation and the Decline of Thought in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.”Extrapolation 37.3 (Fall 1996): 245-256. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 235. Detroit: Gale, 2007.Literature Resource Center. Web. 27 Feb. 2013.
Stewart, Jill. “Ray Bradbury, RIP: Fahrenheit 451 Is Still Misinterpreted. We, Not Government, Are Enslaving Ourselves.” LA Weekly Blogs. LA Weekly, 06 Jun 2012. Web. 27 Feb 2013. .