"The medium is the message," wrote Marshall McLuhan, “because it is the "medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action." Each medium, regardless of the content it mediates, is unique and the message that it presents is the “pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs.” Today, no medium is expanding as rapidly or changing the pattern of communication as profoundly as blogging.
Bloggers, and the audience who reads them, have access to one of the most powerful and transformative technologies in the history of mankind. We not only have access to information that was unavailable to the Aquinas, Newton, and Einstein but we possess the ability to communicate instantly with people across the globe. Yet the vast majority of our time is spent reading and writing about ephemera; warm milk has a longer shelf-life than the average blog post.
To understand why this happens, we must understand the “message” of the medium of blogging. Although he never saw the rise of the blogosphere, the late media critic Neil Postman predicted the situation we find ourselves in:
Perhaps you are familiar with the old adage that says: To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. We may extend that truism: To a person with a pencil, everything looks like a sentence. To a person with a TV camera, everything looks like an image. To a person with a computer, everything looks like data. I do not think we need to take these aphorisms literally. But what they call to our attention is that every technology has a prejudice. Like language itself, it predisposes us to favor and value certain perspectives and accomplishments.
In a culture without writing, human memory is of the greatest importance, as are the proverbs, sayings and songs which contain the accumulated oral wisdom of centuries. That is why Solomon was thought to be the wisest of men. In Kings I we are told he knew 3,000 proverbs. But in a culture with writing, such feats of memory are considered a waste of time, and proverbs are merely irrelevant fancies.
The writing person favors logical organization and systematic analysis, not proverbs. The telegraphic person values speed, not introspection. The television person values immediacy, not history. And computer people, what shall we say of them? Perhaps we can say that the computer person values information, not knowledge, certainly not wisdom. Indeed, in the computer age, the concept of wisdom may vanish altogether.
Almost every blog has an archive listed by date and category but the average blog reader will never take advantage of this resource. Why? Because we assume that anything that was written in the past (i.e., last month) will be of little relevance today. We accept the absurd notion that the latest news is more necessary for understanding our times than the past. But, to paraphrase the historian Arnold Toynbee, the blogger trying to understand the present is like the man with his nose pressed against the mirror trying to see his whole body.
This is not to suggest that blogging should never be timely or focused on the latest news. Nor do I want to imply that light-hearted, even trivial blogging efforts are entirely unworthy. But those of us who spend an inordinate amount of time with this medium invariably want to believe that we are not merely wasting our time. (If I wanted to kill time on the computer I wouldn’t be blogging; I’d be playing The Sims.)
How then should we blog? How can blogging be used to promote wisdom and understanding? Even if the primary “message” of this “medium” is normally transient and shallow, can it not be redeemed? If so, what should we be doing? And, more importantly, what should we not be doing?
If King Solomon were a blogger, how would he avoid what Os Guinness calls the “idol of relevance?” What would he do differently? How can we, as bloggers, model that commitment to wisdom? How, in other words, do we prevent the concept of wisdom from vanishing altogether from this medium?
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"How, in other words, do we prevent the concept of wisdom from vanishing altogether from this medium?"
More importantly, is it even possible to prevent?
posted on 04.12.2005 6:05 AM2
quote: “How…do we prevent the concept of wisdom from vanishing altogether from this medium?
”
I don’t know. I am still wrestling with the question of “why bother with this medium at all?”
Considering that there are over 7 million blogs out there, one can only keep plugging away at it for so long before asking himself whether it’s worth so much effort when practically nobody is reading it.
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So true that we rarely take advantage of blogger's archives. Sometimes when I have some down time, I do just that--delve into the archives--and it usually provides me with some entertainment and/or insight, and gives me a better handle on what that individual is all about.
posted on 04.12.2005 11:54 AM4
How then should we blog? How can blogging be used to promote wisdom and understanding? Even if the primary “message” of this “medium” is normally transient and shallow, can it not be redeemed? If so, what should we be doing? And, more importantly, what should we not be doing?
I've said it before: my use of blogging is to aid the struggle of memory against forgetting.
But I'll be honest: the primary person to whom I blog is actually myself, but anyone who can understand what I write/quote from is OK, too.
The past few days I've blogged about Joshu's Dog, which is one amazing piece of literature.
And that's one amazing understatement.
(Sorry if folks can't read Chinese, or Japanese; I can't read Chinese either, but I wanted to include it to have a record what it looks like in that language.)
posted on 04.12.2005 12:54 PM5
I'm very glad to see someone with such influence in the Christian blogosphere raising these questions which are often neglected amidst the hype.
Quentin Schultze's "Habits of the High-Tech Heart" is a must read for those interested in thinking about the wise use of information technology. He believes that tradition and community are essential for the transmission of wisdom and is therefore quite pessimistic about the adequacy of the internet as a sapiential medium.
posted on 04.12.2005 1:00 PM6
Just curious, if any readers with some historical background know the answer to the following off the top of their head (or know where to look). During the late 18th and early 19th century pamphleteering took off as printing private essays for distribution became cheap and influential politically.
The 37 cent question for Christians would be how did the Church use that medium then? And did it have any lasting impact?
posted on 04.12.2005 8:15 PM7
How many blogs can a blogger blog,
when a blogger's blogging blogs?
What I'd like to see on blog hosting sites as standard equipment and not just as an add on, is a mechanism for creating subject or theme catagories to attach posts to. The transient passer by could then click on a catagory or theme of interest and see all the posts at the blog dealing with that subject. That would be of more immediate use then the standard dated archive format, though I'm not ready to entirely give that up either. My two cents....
~ The Billy Goat ~
PS: Yes, I know the second line is gramatically incorrect... Listen to how it sounds, not how it looks....
posted on 04.13.2005 9:13 PM8
I like TypePad because it lets me create categories for later sorting and retrieval. Your idea regarding "hosting level" catagorization and sorting is terrific. Questions regarding the development of wisdom and understanding are vital in this new medium. Perhaps that is a role we "christian capitalists" (a category I strongly identify with) may eventually fill? Perhaps as we write our blogs - only for ourselves - the mere act of writing allows us to sort out thoughts and ideas...so we can better communicate those ideas to others - in real, live conversation....
Jane N-B
www.TwinCitiesRealEstateBlog.com
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Google searches of the history may show up. And the archives are a record of thought -- perhaps write a book of your own "best" posts?
Blogging is mostly "infotainment", much like news watching but more interactive and with vastly more user control over exactly what is viewed.
Besides writing comments and blog posts, what "actions" are taken? Well, not much different than a phone call with friends, or a bull session at college INSTEAD of more homework.
Or, maybe get a free book (Mind & Media? Joe, have you tried them?) and review it.
Wisdom is learning from other people's mistakes.
Should evil be opposed? If so, how? How do we know what IS evil?
posted on 04.18.2005 5:56 AM