Jason: perhaps the answer to your question is: Yes? Waldemar A Schmidt, PhD, MD (Perseveret et Percipiunt) 503.631.8044 Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. (A Einstein) > On Sep 14, 2018, at 4:28 PM, nysa71 <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > Hmmmm, > > Is America getting more stupid? Or is it getting smarter, and the stupid is just more noticeable? > > ~ Jason > On Friday, September 14, 2018, 10:42:30 AM EDT, Mark Stahlman <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > Gregg: > > Three cheers for good old "billions-and-billions" Carl! Jodie Foster > was pretty good in his 1997 novel-adapted movie "Contact," as I recall > . . . <g> > > Excellent description of the now-obsolete TELEVISION *paradigm* -- > which is not the world in which we live today but rather what Marshall > McLuhan described as "We see the world through the rear-view mirror. > We march backwards into the future." > > For people like Sagan (i.e. academics of the old-school before > "post-modernism" took over, including most involved in the > "humanities"), there was a sentimentality for the PRINT paradigm that > was pushed aside in the 19th-century (but persisted until the > 1950s/60s) -- remembered nostalgically (but not accurately) as period > of "rationality," which had banished "superstition" (as he calls it > out, giving away his sympathies.) > > This was what McLuhan called the "Gutenberg Galaxy" (the name of his > 1961 work on the topic, which Sagan likely read.) That paradigm > disappeared with the telegraph and Samuel Morse's 1844 "What Hath God > Wrought . . . " (taken from Numbers 23:23) . . . !! > > Another who took this approach was Neil Postman -- who took the phrase > "media ecology" from McLuhan and built a career on it. His version of > Sagan's complaint was "Amusing Ourselves to Death" but the point was > the same. > > Another nostalgic view is the recent Steven Pinker "Enlightenment > Now!" book, which tries to recount all the advances we made since the > 17th-century and then makes the obvious mistake of "projecting" even > more to come. No, that's not how it works. > > As best I can tell, Sagan, Postman, Pinker (and thousands of others) > haven't figured out why *any* of this happened (which requires > Aristotle's "formal cause," as interpreted by McLuhan) -- so they have > no capability to "anticipate" what will come next or, more to the > point, even understand where we are today . . . <g> > > Mark > > Quoting "Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx" <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>: > > > Saw this clipped out and posted from Carl Sagan...seems apropos to > > today's world even more! > > > > [cid:image001.jpg@01D44C12.99400920 <mailto:[log in to unmask]>] > > > > ############################ > > > > To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: > > write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> > > or click the following link: > > http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1 <http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1> > > > ############################ > > To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: > write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> > or click the following link: > http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1 <http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1> > ############################ > To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] <mailto:mailto:[log in to unmask]> or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1 <http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1> ############################ To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1