Stories 
Navigating the site:
The Judgment of Thamus
The pyramids at Gizeh, JVS, 1989.
The coming of any new Technology is strange – dangerous – seductive – quiet and it feels so good when it arrives to settle in. Plato crafted a story about the origins of writing to enable him to speak of truth and appearances.
Postman, Technopoly, p. 3-20.
Stories are important means by which people make sense out of what they experience, what they know or what other's tell them. All of us are story tellers. We explain important events by telling each other tales, or personal narrations of what we do. We even tell lies and tall tales. But telling a story is important.
Technopoly is the replacement of the traditional sources of authority, legitimacy and spirituality by material inventions, especially by machines and automation.
the story
Thamus’ judgment is of the gifts presented to him as Egypt's King by Thoth (Mercury in Greek) or Theuth the messenger of the Gods.
p. 3
"few legends are more instructive than his"
Are we becoming "Tools of our tools?"
Thamus’ error – writing is only
a burden
“We may learn from this that it is a mistake to suppose that any
technological innovation has a one-sided effect.”
Every technological is both a burden (price) and a blessing (opportunity)
p. 4.
Wisdom and memory
writing is touted as a means to improve people's memory
Quite the opposite of its real function:
“cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful”
"They will rely on writing to bring things to their remembrance by external signs"
“has the reputation without the reality”
But writing is instead a "recipe for recollection not for memory."
p. 4
Appearances versus reality:
without proper instruction
knowledgeable when quite ignorant
“Conceit of Wisdom”
“they will be a burden to society”
Thamus error – writing is only a burden
p. 5
Every technology is both a burden (price) and a blessing (opportunity)
Every culture must negotiate with technology
p. 5-6
Freud – child – phones – trains
and distance – comment on childhood,
childbearing and infant mortality
p. 6
What do we say of technology when it presents
us with an improved means to an unimproved end!
p. 7
“There is a calculus of technological change that requires a measure of EVENHANDEDNESS”
The uses of technology are largely determined by the structures of the
technology itself
Thus "it’s functions follow its form:"
1. once a technology => tool or => technique is admitted
“it plays out its hand…it does what it was designed to do.2. Our task…To understand what that design is
3. Change will alter what is meant by wisdom/memory
“wisdom will become indistinguishable from mere knowledge”
3A: radical technologies create definitions, new meanings for old terms without our being fully aware let alone understanding it
3B: Insidious and Dangerous when we "are asleep at the wheel"
Examples of changes and radical tools: writing – printing –
radio – television -TV
p. 8
Eyes were open/ now they become shut
“…technology imperiously commandeers our most
important terms.”
Truth, fact, intelligence, wisdom, authority, values, etc.
Technology (by analogy to written language) – redefines our reality:
p. 9
“all the words we live by.”
“We do not pause to ask…”
and does not pause to clue us in”
Principles to be mined from his critique and intent of Thamus
A. undeserved reputations
“authority of elites”
B. knowledge monopolies
Upended by new tools and create, does not equal winners,
Are losers. Blacksmiths lost out to mechanics – Automobile repair
p. 10
Computer Technology power & freedom?
| beneficiaries | ||
|
elites |
vs. |
masses |
| capabilities | ||
|
centralized |
vs. |
dispersed |
Siren Song of Efficiency and Order
p. 11
The result is that certain questions do not arise
US – lust for what is new has no bounds
p. 12
American optimism is monocular – it blinds us to
facts
change is subtle – mysterious – unpredictable
Our patent American optimism is monocular – it blinds us to facts as was warned by
Thamus: “Come to rely on external signs not internal”
Motives & “resources”
Quantities of information without proper instruction
Warns that a massive ideological transformation is now underway
p. 12
Grades, the meaning and origin of
p. 13
William Fanish 1792, at Cambridge University, was the 1st graded paper!
New measures of performance are invented in the 18th Century.
A mathematical concept of reality is equal to IQ or the intelligence quotient. The measure of intelligence becomes a device, a tool for controlling people and influencing what they think of themselves.
Embedded in every tool is an ideological bias
p. 14
Wittgenstein Language is a vehicle and driver of thought
p. 15
unforeseen consequences stand in the way of those who think they see the new directions
p. 16
new elites with new tools and poor instruction as to meaning compete for time – attention – money
World View is divided and generates "culture wars" over different perspectives
p. 17
reading vs. visual stimulation & oral vs. personal reading (classroom)
| oral tradition | written -- literate tradition |
|---|---|
song and dance |
print and reading |
End of truce between common (oral) and personal (quiet) reading aloud.
p. 18
A new technology changes everything – not really in a negative or positive way, not a good or evil change, but a decisive departure from what has gone before.
ecology of media and resistance
p. 19
T. S. Elliott and the use of poetry (content)
Analogy
–
are our minds diverted while the soul is looted?
p. 17
will the computer raise egocentrism to the status of a
virtue?
we are too diverted to notice the changes
p. 19
“To help us do this we have the judgment of Thamus, who…in his way
p. 20
What changes do inventions bring about in tools and tool complexes ?
- New technologies alter the character of our symbols: the
things we think with
- And they alter the nature of community, the arena in which thoughts develop
- We listen to and join the Thomas / Innes conversation to revitalize it, to enliven the dialogue.
From --this author-- we gain from this strange and dangerous story about new inventions, a hidden meaning. From Plato's personal recollection we can see a deep connection to a sense of loss veiled by the long past when literate societies replaced the aural and oral traditions.
My comment --Siry:
we need to recreate meaningful discourse or conversation --a dialogue-- about our values and about how we use tools to achieve our ends, especially when technology is changing rapidly!
