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SEVENTEENTH CENTURY PRINT CULTURE
A Tait - 17th Century Print Culture
Neat discussion. What struck me most were the parallels to the Internet Age and a confirmation that the late 1990's probably demonstrated the most fundamental change in the ability to transmit ideas, particularly political ones, to other individuals since Gutenberg's invention. Wonder if the parallel stands up to further scrutiny such as similar growth acceleration, technological influence etc
John Fountain Printing Press 17 century England
It's ironic listening to In Our Time program on the empowering nature of the printing press for the growth of democratic society and innovative culture and simultaneously reading the BBC's "permissions" rights associated with the download of the MP3 file . "The BBC grants you a 7-day, non-exclusive licence to download this In Our Time audio. You may not copy, reproduce, edit, adapt, alter, republish, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use this audio in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use. You may not use this file for the purpose of promoting, advertising, endorsing or implying a connection with you (or any third party) and the BBC, its agents or employees." . How would such a claim been received by citizens in the 17th century - just prior to the English civil war? Would they have passively acquiesced to such claims from the Stationer's Company...as we listeners to BBC's radio 4 are asked (told) to do? If they had acqiesced, rather than aftively disobeyed, would there have been a civil war? an innovative and dynamic democratic society? see more at my blog http://jagfnz.blogspot.com/2006/01/printing-press-and-social-change-17th.html
Martin Wheatman
Interesting to note how oral we *still* are, despite the power of print. Our legislation is still formed in Parliament which is, at heart, a debating chamber. Or does that just show how anachronistic that Parliament is - the rest of the wold has discovered the power of print - especially in a week where the most populus nation on earth fears the ability to import ideas in print form. If the processing of print, which is to some extent automated nowadays, truely become fully automated (and therefore intellegent?) whether we could move our government (small 'g') onto something more considered / rational? I get the feeling this week's programme ran out of time!
Anne Curley - 17th century and printing
Fantastic as always - a great help in the first year of my degree, but always enjoyable. More of the same please.
Franz Boas
from ...léo burton Franz Boaz, who was mentioned in the discussion, was one of the first anthropologists to see truth as relative to culture. He was influential in tolerance of behaviour of "others", and acceptance that our mores are not natural or universal. His pupil, Ruth Benedict, in Pattern of Culture, explains how a culture selects from the arc of the environment according to the culture's established pattern (perhaps analagous to Piaget's description of assimilation in the individual). Thus what may be "right" for one culture, may be "wrong" for another. There are no universal truths (and perhaps no ultimate reality). It is difficult for us to accept that some cultures do not perceive perspective as we do, may have a different cognitive style, have a non-lineal concept of reality where causality has little value. More difficult is to accept that cannibalism, female circumcision, foot-binding,incest etc may be "wrong" only for our culture....yet we can massacre millions of people and argue that it such behaviour is necessary, legal and "right3.
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