The Written Word Endures, The Spoken Word

The Point Is That Profound But Contradictory Ideas May Exist Side By Side, If They Are Constructed From Different Materials And Methods. And Have Different Purposes. Each Tells Us Something Important About Where We Stand In The Universe, And It Is Foolish To Insist That They Must Despise Each Other.

Through The Computer, The Heralds Say, We Will Make Education Better, Religion Better, Politics Better, Our Minds Better — Best Of All, Ourselves Better. This Is, Of Course, Nonsense, And Only The Young Or The Ignorant Or The Foolish Could Believe It.

People Of A Television Culture Need “plain Language” Both Aurally And Visually, And Will Even Go So Far As To Require It In Some Circumstances By Law. The Gettysburg Address Would Probably Have Been Largely Incomprehensible To A 1985 Audience.

Television Is Our Culture's Principal Mode Of Knowing About Itself. Therefore -- And This Is The Critical Point -- How Television Stages The World Becomes The Model For How The World Is Properly To Be Staged. It Is Not Merely That On The Television Screen Entertainment Is The Metaphor For All Discourse. It Is That Off The Screen The Same Metaphor Prevails. (92)

Anyone Who Has Studied The History Of Technology Knows That Technological Change Is Always A Faustian Bargain: Technology Giveth And Technology Taketh Away, And Not Always In Equal Measure. A New Technology Sometimes Creates More Than It Destroys. Sometimes, It Destroys More Than It Creates. But It Is Never One-sided. The Invention Of The Printing Press Is An Excellent Example. Printing Fostered The Modern Idea Of Individuality But It Destroyed The Medieval Sense Of Community And Social Integration.