Battling the Gutenburg Bias

I think one of the most difficult things to overcome as someone looking to explore the area of media theology is overcoming the 'Gutenburg bias'.  Even as a relatively young man still, the world in which I grew up - with TV, Commodore 64, VCR triumphing over BETA Max and personal computers entering the home to be followed shortly after by internet - was still so heavily print biased.  I know that my tendency with each new technological invention or trend is to begin from a position that naturally considers that how things are, or were, is better than how they might be.  I like how Douglas Adams (author of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) puts it:

Everything that's already in the world when you're born is just normal...anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it...anything that gets invented after your thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it's been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really (recounted in From the Garden to the City, Dyer, Chp 1).

I guess what I am trying to get at is that our bias' frame our vision of the past and of the future.  And whilst I like how Adams has captured this, I can't help but think there is something he misses.  Part of why I think something is missing is that I know others don't see the world with the same Gutenburg bias as I do.  What's missing for me is the way history gets brought in to support both the pessimistic and optimistic biases of viewing our movement into the future.  Strangely enough, the logic that we apply in this process seems somewhat reversed.  For me this becomes apparent particularly in viewing things in the context of the church.

When we are inclined to see a pessimistic future, we look at history over a long period, and our assumption is often that we have progressed for the better.  That the world today is better than world of yesteryear.  In shrinking the historical timeline (if it is in fact a line at all) all of a sudden moving into the future however becomes a negative transition.  The developments of today, which are replacing that which is, seem to naturally be replacing that which is good.  We begin to reminisce through rose coloured lenses.  We view what is 'normal' as what is better.  So a book is better than a movie; chatting in person is better than chatting online; an encyclopedia is better than Wikipedia; a journal article is more valuable than a blogpost; etc, etc.  Because we've progressed, where we are now needs to be protected!

In terms of the church, the problem of aliteracy (knowing how to read but being uninterested in doing so) looms large when the Bible, a written text, is a such an integral part of how God is revealed to us.  And so we can then have a tendency to resist that which is bringing change upon our recent past.  This is what I mean by reversal of our historic logic.  We want to acknowledge the progression of moving from an oral, or even written but pre-Gutenburg (printing press) situation, to a Bible in the hands of the people in their native language whilst at the same time decrying how technology seemingly is now progressing us into a somewhat post-print era (post-print in the sense of the printed page no longer being the dominant medium).

And the same seems to ring true for when we are inclined to see an optimistic future, often wanting to recover that of a more ancient historical situation as things were better then.  Suggesting that the world hasn't necessarily progressed for the better. The world of today is maybe not better than yesteryear.  But in shrinking the timeline, moving into the future is a positive transition.  We view what we're moving towards as better than what's now.  A film can intensely emotionally engage us more than a book, we're more connected today than ever; we can be together even though geographically apart; blogging lets us get our voice out there without big brother stopping it; etc, etc.  Because things aren't as good as they were, we can't be content to stay here much longer!

We can in this way believe that new technology, or trends can recover the positive that was.  We want to say that things were better then, whilst suggesting that trending into the future will return us to such a better place.

In the church we can romanticise the first century situation.  We can say aliteracy isn't really a problem because those first churches didn't even have a New Testament to read; whatever they did have to read needed to be shared corporately; and the idea of a personal Bible to study and ponder was not at all a reality.  We can look with eagerness upon the place of Youtube to bring our modern day "apostles" beaming into our homes.   We can see Facebook as an opportunity to create a community that has a much better idea of what is going on in each others lives.  We want to say things were better once whilst at the same time believing that the new will take us back to what was.   That the only way backwards is forwards.

Personally, I think somehow we've got to hold all of this together, even in its somewhat illogical absurdness.  I think the Bible frames the story of the world with the images of a perfect beginning and a perfect conclusion - things started in relationship with God and they will one day be again in relationship with him - in the mean time, I think all of the past, the present and the future, contain paradoxically a progression and a regression.  At times, we see a new that supersedes the old and brings a sense of abundance.  At other times, there is a new that supersedes the old and we are confronted by a sense of loss.  Without such a paradoxical balance to how we seek to engage with media theology I believe, we run the high risk of being either "Luddites" or "Early Adopters" instead.  Holding fast to what is, or fast to what is to be, without holding fast to Him who loves us.