inf-site/quotes/25b8cdf6-dd5f-4e15-82ed-11a167dbaa78

author: Neil Postman
content: "Every technology has a prejudice. Like language itself, it predisposes us\
  \ to favor and value certain perspectives and accomplishments. In a culture without\
  \ writing, human memory is of the greatest importance, as are the proverbs, sayings\
  \ and songs which contain the accumulated oral wisdom of centuries. That is why\
  \ Solomon was thought to be the wisest of men. In Kings I we are told he knew 3,000\
  \ proverbs. But in a culture with writing, such feats of memory are considered a\
  \ waste of time, and proverbs are merely irrelevant fancies. The writing person\
  \ favors logical organization and systematic analysis, not proverbs. The telegraphic\
  \ person values speed, not introspection. The television person values immediacy,\
  \ not history...\r\n\r\nEvery technology has a philosophy which is given expression\
  \ in how the technology makes people use their minds, in what it makes us do with\
  \ our bodies, in how it codifies the world, in which of our senses it amplifies,\
  \ in which of our emotional and intellectual tendencies it disregards. This idea\
  \ is the sum and substance of what the great Catholic prophet, Marshall McLuhan\
  \ meant when he coined the famous sentence, \u201CThe medium is the message.\u201D"
id: 25b8cdf6-dd5f-4e15-82ed-11a167dbaa78