Historical technological change and the human mind. Part 1

The absolute majority of the commentaries within our educational project are dedicated to the discussion of social norms and ideological beliefs. In other words, our top priority is the exhibition of the historical evolution of our social consciousness. However, this ideological superstructure does not have its own independent and separate life. It has constantly been reminded throughout our various posts that all of the historical social progress humanity has experienced so far is the result of the incessant economic progress. And yet, despite playing the central role, this material base is largely overlooked, and not merely by the non-scientific eye. For even the academic person very often appears to be shielded by his or her intellectual arrogance from acknowledging this absolute dependence of the mental world upon the material one.

Nevertheless, one of our previous posts has already been consecrated to the issue of technological change. Over there we have challenged the resistance to the introduction of artificial intelligence as the latest technological revolution. As it was argued, this fear of technological innovations shares its origins with the conservative fear of new social norms. It is simply how our social consciousness reacts to the as-of-yet unknown world. Hence, it could be stated that there are at least two ways in which the historical material development impacts the human mind. One of them is a lot less visible, whereby, for instance, entire societies began challenging the privileges of the aristocracy without ever being aware that those revolutionary thoughts were caused by the historical shift away from the land-dominated economy. The other type of impact is much more tangible. For instance, the introduction of personal computers changed not only the labour market, but other social aspects as well. And how was our social consciousness affected by this particular technological development? It might be best to begin with a quote:

“Perhaps a greater danger, says Weizenbaum, lies in the fact that ‘a computer will do what you tell it to do, but that may be much different from what you had in mind.’ The machines can break loose from human intentions. Computers, he argues, are infinitely literal-minded; they exercise no judgments, have no values. Fed a program that was mistaken, a military computer might send off missiles in the wrong direction or fire them at the wrong time. Several years ago, Admiral Thomas Moorer, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate committee: ‘It is unfortunate that we have become slaves to these damned computers.’”

Would anyone today still consider such claims to be serious? Hardly so. But that is because we have now been surrounded by these machines for quite a while, hence our minds no longer create such resistance. Furthermore, there were some critics who were “worried that a democratization of computers [...] may eventually cause human intellectual powers to atrophy.” Again, such ridiculous assertions can only come from generations that did not grow up with these electronic devices being omnipresent. Those generations that grew up into a world where women could already vote would no longer regard this social norm as a threat to civilization. Likewise, the idea that men would become emasculated if women were allowed into the same colleges could only have been suggested before co-education had become a material reality. Hence, our current social consciousness can only judge as absurd the following paragraph:

“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.”

Now, depending upon the features of a particular technological innovation, different types of negative effects can be presumed. As we have just seen in the case of computers, the argument could focus upon the intellectual capabilities of human beings. But history has also examples when a relatively revolutionary innovation had been attacked for alleged risks related to human morality. Let’s look at the case of the printing press. Before its invention, “books were generally copied by hand, and presses and other machines were rarely used.” Would it make sense from our modern perspective to go back beyond this machine and to once again start copying everything by hand? Unless that’s a new conservative policy of Making Books Rare Again, it would be difficult to denounce the abundance of literature that we enjoy today. Here is some more historical context:

“The copying of books was also slow, tedious, and very time-consuming; it took years for a scribe to complete ‘a particularly fine manuscript with colored initials and miniature art work.’ When Bishop Leofric took over the Exeter Cathedral in 1050, he found only five books in its library. Despite immediately establishing a scriptorium of skilled workers, his crew managed to produce only sixty-six books in the twenty-two years before the bishop’s death in 1072. Likewise, although the Library of Cambridge University had a remarkable collection of 122 books in 1424, it ‘labored for a half-century to increase the number to 330.’”

Perhaps, one could also suggest ditching our printing technologies as the solution to the job apocalypse that artificial intelligence is bringing? Thousands of former warehouse and office workers would then be spending their long working days copying by hand the same texts over and over again, even though all that could be easily done by machines. All irony aside, learning to write by hand might still be a useful skill to learn. But no respectful person today would regard this former economic task of copying texts by hand as beneficial in any way. For the workers themselves this improves neither their mental nor their physical capabilities. And for the rest of the society this would entail a loss of labour time that could be dedicated to other more important tasks. But yet again, it must be remembered that such reasoning merely represents our social consciousness, and not that which prevailed when the printing press was still a novelty.

“Brothers, nobody should say or think: ‘What is the sense of bothering with copying by hand when the art of printing has brought to light so many important books; a huge library can be acquired inexpensively.’ I tell you, the man who says this only tries to conceal his own laziness.”

These are the words of Benedictine abbot Johannes Trithemius at the end of the 15th century. What he regarded as laziness, we might simply call efficiency. And while this abbot represented the German lands, the printing press would also have an impact in southern Europe. Soon after printing was introduced to the city of Venice, “the scribal community already felt threatened by the new technology, and its lower costs”. Below is an excerpt from a polemic by a scribe, directed at the chief magistrate of Venice in the second half of the same 15th century:

“I know that you always hate printed books crammed with the foolishness of common folk, and that you follow sound precepts. The things I have described do not apply to you, but to the utterly uncouth types of people who have driven reputable writers from their homes. Among the latter this servant of yours has been driven out, bewailing the damage which results from the printers' cunning. They shamelessly print, at a negligible price, material which may, alas, inflame impressionable youths, while a true writer dies of hunger. Cure (if you will) the plague which is doing away with the laws of all decency, and curb the printers. They persist in their sick vices, setting Tibullus in type, while a young girl reads Ovid to learn sinfulness. Through printing, tender boys and gentle girls, chaste without foul stain, take in whatever mars purity of mind or body; they encourage wantonness, and swallow up huge gain from it.

O God! O piety! O holy venerable faith! What, my lords, are you doing? Your pledges come to nothing, as long as what is pleasant is more pleasing to you than what is honourable. They basely flood the market with anything suggestive of sexuality, and they print the stuff at such a low price that anyone and everyone procures it for himself in abundance. And so it happens that asses go to school. The printers guzzle wine and, swamped in excess, bray and scoff. The Italian writer lives like a beast in a stall. The superior art of authors who have never known any other work than producing well-written books is banished. This glory pertains to you, Doge: to lay low the printing-presses. I beg you to do this, lest the wicked should triumph.

Writing indeed, which brings in gold for us, should be respected and held to be nobler than all goods, unless she has suffered degradation in the brothel of the printing presses. She is a maiden with a pen, a harlot in print.”

As ludicrous as these words might appear to us today, they contain a classic historical lesson. Not only was copying by hand a longstanding economic activity, but before the 15th century, medieval European societies essentially knew no other way of producing books. Now, there is a natural tendency for people to become emotionally attached to the world with which they are familiar. From this arises the irrational panic that accompanies change, even when it concerns such an apparently banal issue as the physical production of texts. For some members of those earlier generations, the new world introduced by the printing press seemed frightening. From the standpoint of our contemporary social consciousness, this “new world” has long since become outdated. That is why it seems comical to us that anyone could ever have been worried about it. More importantly, however, the permanent material progress is gradually making our contemporary world outdated as well. And history suggests that the most reasonable course is not to overidealize our particular stage of technological development. And to let go of all nostalgia. We shall continue this discussion in the next part.

Sources:
1. https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,948017-2,00.html
2. https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs492/papers/neil-postman--five-things.html?trk=public_post_comment-text&utm_source
3. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=897710&utm_source
4. https://www.medievalists.net/2013/02/of-monks-medieval-scribes-and-middlemen/
5. https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=337&utm_source
6. https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?entryid=4741&utm_source

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