The Vanishing Word

Recently I finished reading the book that you see to the left, The Vanishing Word.  It’s in the history philosophy genre, and was a very interesting read, so I thought I would comment on it briefly here.

The book is written by Arthur W Hunt III.  He got me arguing with him right away, when he tried to convince me that technology was not “neutral”.  C’mon now, I thought.  You’re not going to try to convince me that the picture tube or the paper clip are inherently evil, are you?  Aren’t all these things equally capable of good or bad, depending on who’s using them?

Now before I get back to that, I’ll tell you the frustrating thing about the book.  It’s rather like a half-written book…one that never really answers your questions or finishes the point.  And perhaps worst of all, throughout the book he promises that he’s going to provide some suggested solutions for the cultural problems he’s talking about.  When he gets to that point, his quick answers look like something his editor suggested he should add at the last minute.

But these things certainly do lend the book to discussion!  So here I am.

So, is technology neutral?  I don’t think Hunt is really saying that a computer or automobile is inherently evil.  What he is saying is that they do cause changes in society, that, especially in a fallen world, can cause problems.  So with that explanation I’m sure I have at least a few more heads nodding in agreement.

Now his main concern is the fact that our society is becoming less and less reliant on the written word and more and more reliant on images.  Some may argue even this point, but the real question is, is this a bad thing?

Is a visual culture actually becoming dumber?  Or more obsessed with sex and violence?  Of course, it’s easy to say that our culture is like this, but is it party because of our obsession with the visual over the written word?  Or, perhaps closer to the truth, is the spread of these things being helped along by our obsession with images?

It’s easy to just bash TV and internet use and movies and all that.  After all, with the shows on these days, and with the average Canadian watching them for over 3 hours per day…well, this can’t be good, can it?  I think that Hunt at times does digress to grinding his personal axe and not giving evidence for why he’s against…whatever he’s against.

But that aside, is there a reason that God has revealed Himself through the written word?  Text does do different things than images.  It’s more exact and precise than images.  Images can be ambiguous.  Pictures can say more than words in a small space, but they can more easily be misunderstood.

But let it be noted that God used images too.  Remember the snake on a pole that was lifted up over the people of Israel.  They were to look at it to be healed from their snake bites.  (Of course, this snake did later become an idol in Israel, perhaps confirming our tendency to worship images!)

In the end, Hunt did convince me that technology does have…unwanted results.  He did make me think about the way we get information through images, and that there can be dangers in that.  Related is another more widely accepted problem – the problem with getting our information in little bites all over the place, instead of really getting first hand, in depth explanations.  It’s so easy to be misled in a thousand ways by the little things you see on TV or on the net.

A lot of these things are too subtle to write about in a short blog entry.  I do think that there is a place for images and symbols – but what is that place?  What do you think?  Some other bloggers have added to the conversation…

Roger Tuinstra, a public school teacher, makes some interesting points about the way we pull the Bible out of the congregations hands and put it in little chunks on the screen (is the pastor getting people to read who otherwise wouldn’t, or is he encouraging them to not bother bringing a Bible?  Ah the chicken and the egg!).

Josh Sowin, a web developer, has written several intriguing blogs in response to an article by an internet design company defending the image revolution.  He’s made some similar points to mine.