Reflections on the Death of God

"Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication."

Marshall McLuhan 

 

“A new technology does not add or subtract something. It changes everything.” 

Neil Postman 

 

The old religion is dead. Technology killed it. Let me explain.

Myths are colorful stories that present the values of a people. Oral cultures deliver these by live performances like sermons, songs, and theatre. Local authorities set the narrative. This provides members with a common identity and meaning structure.

Writing creates scripture and clergy. Flesh and blood leaders begin to yield to an immortal word.

The invention of printing expands literacy, transforming this relay into a quiet, solitary affair. Clergy, the deliverers of the word, become obsolete. Individuals now read, a process relying on concepts and active imagination. 

Radio, television, and film turn storytelling from conceptual to perceptual. It becomes stimulating, passive, and uncritical. While the reader is a translator, the viewer is a receiver. These mediums, more costly and profitable, commercialize myth.

The internet, social media, and streaming produce further revolutions. The purpose remains: a vibrant transmission of values. But the medium has values of its own. 

Writing: The tribe becomes a church.

Printing: The church becomes a public.

Broadcasting: The public becomes a mass.

Internet: The mass becomes a network.

Our mode of communication distinguishes us from the other animals. If the other apes could speak, we would count them among us. Likewise, their mode of communication distinguish the ages of mankind. The human brain prefers immediacy, ease, and novelty. The Bible cannot compete with television, nor television with TikTok. Some think rationality displaced religion. Make no mistake. We have never transcended myth, any more than we have lost our capacity to dream. Myth is, after all, the dream that we dream together. 

"God," referring to the animating and guiding power of the universe, cannot die. But the traits attributed to this force have changed often.

Network cults replace the church. Secular civilization fashions new gods. We need meaning structures, and our environment creates the context for them. 

All ideologies are not equal. Some are destructive. The most sustaining can be perverted. But is a symbol actually the thing it represents? The great prophets of every age have rejected dogma in pursuit of truth.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Principles and Happiness

"When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men will at length establish their lives on that basis." Henry David Thoreau First Principles Conclusions are drawn from premises, whether consciously or not. Premises therefore determine one's theory of life and consequent actions. My own: 1. Reality is non-contradictory. This is to say reality is knowable. The number one is the number one. You have to fool yourself or lie to say that one does not equal one. Or to say that an apple is red, but also not red, in the same sense and at the same time. Contradiction is possible only in the imagination. With definitions applied, a thing must be either true or untrue. This is the first law of logic, the Law of Identity. It is represented by the equation A = A, meaning that a thing is positively itself, which is the root of all logic. 2. Judgements and actions follow from values. Whenever you hear "good," "bad,...
Read more

A Word on Autobiography

"We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking."  Henry David Thoreau Autobiography is ideal reading for general education. Reasons:   The worth of any written work is dependent on the character of the author. In fiction and philosophy, one puts forth a view of life. In reference books and how-to guides, one proposes principles, methods, and facts. But what are the fruits of those attitudes and ideas? Who is writing them? Autobiography is by nature an answer to these questions.  When a man, having lived and achieved something of significance, in his view, lays the story of his life before the public, he searches in his memory and finds those moments which were pivotal. I n his poetry, a man might describe a sparrow in flight. I n his textbook, he might expose the mysteries of the atom. But in his autobiography, he  includes only the details that defined his life and determined its course.  It is pure case study....
Read more