1/ Marshall McLuhan argued that the Gutenberg press created a visual/textual culture that lasted ~500 years.
2/ He also argued that electronic technologies "retribalize" human societies and create societies that look a bit like historical oral cultures.
3/ Here, I don't mean oral culture in the literal sense of a pre-literate society that has not yet invented writing and has to rely entirely on spoken language.
4/ Oral culture is an immediate, enveloping, immersive context for life marked by strong indeterminacy.
5/ Visual-textual culture is a determinate object-relations culture where there is a distance between experiencer and experienced.
6/ This may sound very woo and abstract/metaphysical, but actually leads to very clear differences in how we live.
7/ A simple example is expecting the news to come to you from a determinate source like the New York Times instead of via osmosis on Twitter.
8/ In visual-textual culture, "news" happens "over there" and comes to you predictably in object form: a "newspaper."
9/ You can compartmentalize your behaviors in relation to it the "news" at arm's length, as a relationship to the "newspaper".
10/ In oral culture, "news" is a rapid change in your background context that manifests in all sorts of small and big ways.
11/ After the Paris attacks for example, my Twitter feed suddenly got "serious". The French flag diffused through the logographic layer.
12/ My Facebook UI suddenly had a "mark as safe" control. My mix of links from all directions changed to have a Paris bias.
13/ Like a heightened level of noise, or a smell of burning, this kind of "news" is not something that enters your life in a contained, localized way.
14/ It is also not something that you can turn off or engage via a compartmentalized habit like "read the newspaper at breakfast."
15/ In a visual-textual culture, if I don't get the newspaper, I don't get the news. In an oral culture I have to drop off the grid entirely.
16/ Orality is a good synecdoche for this condition. You can close your eyes to shut out light and sleep. You cannot turn off your ears.
17/ Visual-textual culture allows for strong, almost leak-proof filter bubbles. Oral culture means very unreliable filter bubbles.
18/ New media brand names like Buzzfeed, Vox, Vice and Upworthy (a reference to a UI action of voting up) are all suggestive of oral culture.
19/ Oral culture is also participatory. The grapevine and watercooler don't work without your active participation, the newspaper does.
20/ Individual cultural pathways are noisy and unreliable, like a game of telephone. But multiple pathways converge robustly on you.
21/ The pathways can also add or subtract energy, and develop stable vorticity, like a hurricane. You can be caught up in it or left becalmed.
22/ Journalistic authority of presence, I'm there, you're not, is weakened. Anyone can increasingly choose to be "present" anywhere.
23/ During the events in Ferguson last year for example, some people on the ground had lower situation awareness than some people on Twitter.
24/ In oral culture, sentiment is no longer a mere stylistic affection in an impersonal-by-default mode of cultural being.
25/ Nor is it merely a mere symptom of pandering for "distribution" a la "clickbait" headlines and outrage-triggering antics.
26/ Rather, it becomes central to cultural production. A cultural event includes, via feedback, the landscape of sentiment that shape its evolution.
27/ So you don't just actively help distribute the "news", you are part of it. You reaction to the Paris attacks is part of the event itself.
28/ If you think culture has always operated because of literal watercoolers and neighborhood gossip, think again.
29/ When these dynamics are a weak sideshow, they behave very differently from when they are the digitally amplified main act.
30/ To navigate oral culture, there is a single Golden Rule: let go of your need for determinate awareness and control.
31/ To tighten your grip and hunt for certainties with increased energy is a recipe for anxiety, not effectiveness.
32/ Like a martial artist, you will need to look for your center and ground within yourself, not in the environment.
33/ I often refer to this as navigating with a gyroscope instead of a compass.
|
|
