The Civilization of Illiteracy Part 29

Gentlemen, place your bets!

The investment in sports, as in the stock market, is supposed to return profit. Successful sportspeople need not testify to how high their own return is. That this return also means compromised physical or mental integrity is part of the cynical equation that the public enthusiastically validates. When players are traded and contracts are signed, the money they earn, disproportionate as it seems at times, corresponds, almost to the last digit, to the number of people who will watch them, some for the sake and pleasure of the performance, others making money from a team's victory or an athlete's record. In some states and countries, whether betting is legal or prohibited, it is by far the strongest sector of the economy. It takes very interesting forms, however. One is the direct bet: this horse, this player, this team.

Betting, with its partial literacy involving its own mediating elements that render reading and writing useless, is not a new inst.i.tution. People were challenged by the odds down through history. But once the structural change that entailed means of networking, task distribution, and almost instant access to any event in the world was in place, the experience of betting totally took over that of competing. All our unfulfilled desires and drives are now embodied by those we choose to represent us, and for whose victory we not only root, but also invest in.

There is an ideal stake-the successful player-and a mundane stake-the actual wager. Expectation of high figures is an extension of literate expectations. It embodies the naive a.s.sumption that cultivated minds and challenged bodies unite in a balanced personality of high integrity. The reason this model failed over and over need not be restated here. But the point needs to be made that the ideal stake and the trivial stake are not independent. This introduces to compet.i.tion an element of obscurity in the form of motivations not intrinsic to sports.

The indirect wager represents this element.

The message is the sneaker

The biggest indirect bet is made by marketing and advertising. On the never- ending table of Olympic records, the most spectacular performances are dollar signs preceding figures into the billions. Within the general s.h.i.+ft from manufacturing to service economy characteristic of the civilization of illiteracy, sport becomes a form of entertainment. New media, replacing the printed word as the dominant means of communication, makes possible international viewing of compet.i.tions as they happen.

In the past, we were satisfied with the image of the winner. Now we can own the tape of the game and can retrieve each moment of any event. More broadband, and soon we will download the running athlete directly onto our monitors. For a price, of course.

People consume sports. They are able to fly to the Olympics, wherever the best bid takes them (Barcelona, Atlanta, or Sydney), even able to pay for forty-five minutes or a whole week of shaping up with the very best trainers. Facts in the world of sports, as much as in the rest of our activities, are less important than the image. The authority and self-discipline, on which physical education was built, are replaced by the freedom and opportunity to choose from among many sports events, and by an att.i.tude of permissiveness and self-indulgence which many times results in considering the whole world as a sports show.

Sports are used to further many causes and support many interest groups. On the stage of the events they sponsor, the world's largest companies compete with feminism, equal opportunity, AIDS, and various disabilities for the attention and dollars of the audience. Sponsors.h.i.+p is a highly selective experience. Nevertheless, it frequently contradicts the slogans it sets before the public. These are important because the indirect bet on sports takes into consideration the huge market of entertainment, and defines within this market the segments it will address.

Product endors.e.m.e.nts, advertising, and public relations are the media through which marketing places its bets. No less than 500,000 brands were traded in Atlanta. Only to keep track of them was a major task, described officially as "protecting the integrity of the Olympic Games and the rights of official sponsors," but also "detecting attempts at parasitic marketing." Every square inch on the body of a tennis player or a track and field athlete can be rented. And is. The better the manager (not necessarily a player's game), the higher the endors.e.m.e.nt contract. The minute detail picked up by the camera allows us to see the name of the maker on the watch, the manufacturer's logo on the socks, a sponsor company's name on the s.h.i.+rts and headgear, the brand of glucose or mineral water, the maker of ice or snow for winter games. It seems that the compet.i.tion on the court and the compet.i.tion among those who buy the s.p.a.ce available on cyclists' ware, football players'

uniforms, skiers, swimmers, runners, and chess players are feeding off one another. When the Canon company chose as its prime-time advertising actor a tennis player who did not make it beyond the preliminary games, the bet continued on the waves, on the screens, on the videotapes, and on any other imaginable display.

Marshall McLuhan plays year after year in the Superbowl. The world indeed becomes a village. Moreover, the world has almost decided that the outcome is less important than the new commercials, the new thirty-second drama, followed by the numbers telling us all how much more a second of prime time costs, and what benefits it might bring. But the message is actually lost. Here McLuhan was still somehow captive to literacy, believing there was a message, as we are used to when writing or reading a text. The message is the sneaker, or whatever will take over, for its own short turn in the glory of consumption, the world. The day the object is acknowledged, between New York and Zambia, Paris and the tribes in the Brazilian rain forests, Frankfurt and the starving populations of Africa or Asia, there will be a trade in the original and its many subst.i.tutes, reaching sheer madness. Sports entrusted with the marketing image are equalled in their persuasive power only by the entertainment stars, of similar illiterate condition, singing for the world's hungriest only in order to add one more marketing craze to their torment.

In these and in other characteristics mentioned, the unnatural aspect of sports takes over their original, natural component.

It seems almost as though the sports experience is falling into itself, is imploding, leaving room for the many machines and gadgets we use at home in order to salvage our degenerating bodies. Now we still bicycle, ski, climb stairs, and row in the privacy of our rooms, with our eyes glued to the images of the very few who still do the real thing, but for reasons less and less connected with excellence. Soon we will swim in the pools and ski on the slopes of virtual reality. Some are already timing their performance. Little do they know that they are pioneering one of the many Olympic games of the future.

Science and Philosophy-More Questions Than Answers

Words strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place, Will not stay still. T.S. Elliot, Burnt Norton

In some of the most advanced fields of scientific inquiry, research results are exchanged as soon as they become available.

Obviously, the sluggish medium of print and the long cycles involved in the review process prior to academic publication do not come into the picture. On Web sites dedicated to research, the review process consists of acknowledging, challenging, and furthering breakthrough hypotheses. It is carried out by real peers, not by the geriatric or opportunistic hierarchies that have the publis.h.i.+ng process in their firm grip. Frequently, research is carried out in and through the communication media.

Images, data, and simulations are part of the work and part of the shared knowledge, already available in formats that can be inputted for further work or can be technologically tested.

Of course, there are many issues connected to the new dynamics of science, not the least of which is intellectual property and integrity. A totally new experience in research and knowledge dissemination is taking place. The majority of the researchers involved know that previous models, originating in the pragmatics of the civilization of literacy, will not provide answers. As beautiful as the science embodied in the technology of industrial society is, it will not, not even accidentally, contribute to the scientific progress in nanotechnology, in bioinformatics, in fluid dynamics, and in other frontier domains researched today. Gene expression and protein syntheses are many working centuries-the total of the years contributed by researchers to the advancement of their respective fields-ahead of everything that science has produced in the past. Add to these accomplishments in the ever-expanding list of modern sciences, and you get the feeling that humankind is literally reinventing itself in the civilization of illiteracy.

The list to follow is telling of the s.h.i.+ft from the coa.r.s.e level of scientific effort corresponding to the industrial operations of milling and grinding, to a level of atomic and sub-atomic re-ordering. The same components, differently ordered, can appear to us as graphite or diamonds, sand or silicon for chips. The list represents a reality of enormous consequence, confirmed in the daily commotion of a never-ending series of discoveries.

Life on Mars, molecular self-a.s.sembly, protein folding, atomic resolution imaging, nano-structural materials with unprecedented properties, quantum devices, advances in neuro-medicine-the list is a shameless exercise in creating headlines, soon to be replaced by newer and more creative endeavors. This is why, in addressing issues of science and philosophy, I do not intend to offer a catalogue of current research, but to put the subject in a dynamic perspective. By all means, I want to avoid the danger of presenting science especially as the agent of change, as though its own motivations and means could give humankind its direction and purpose.

Rationality, reason, and the scale of things

The dynamics of change in scientific and philosophic thinking is not independent of the underlying structure of the pragmatics that leads to the civilization of illiteracy. Both involve rationality, which connects human practical experiences to consistent inferences (sometimes seen as logical conclusion) and to the ability to predict events (in nature or society), even to influence and control them. Rationality is connected to efficiency insofar as it is applied in the selection of means appropriate to accomplis.h.i.+ng goals; or it serves as an instrument for evaluation of the premises leading to a selected course of action. In short, rationality is goal oriented. Reason, in turn, is value oriented; it guides practical experiences of human self-const.i.tution in the direction of appropriateness.

Rationality and reason are interconditioned. Right and wrong, good and bad, are the axes along which human action and emotion can be diagrammed in the matrix of living and working that they const.i.tuted under the guise of literacy.

The process through which human rationality and reason become characteristics of human self-const.i.tution is long and tortuous.

People defining themselves in different pragmatic contexts enter into a network of interdependency. At a very small scale of human existence and activity, rationality and reason were indistinguishable. They began to differentiate early on, already during hunting and gathering. But during the long experience of settlement and taking care of plants and animals, they grew aware of the distinction between what they were doing and how. With the culture of artifacts, to which tools belong, reason and rationality took separate paths. With the advent of science, in its most primitive forms, doc.u.mented in ancient China, Egypt, India, and Greece, rationality and reason often conflicted.

Things can be right, without being good at the same time. There is a rationality-goal oriented: how to get more goods, how to avoid losses-with the appearance of reason-actions to please forces supposed to control nature or matter. Parallel to science, magic manifested itself through alchemy, astrology, and numerology, all focused on the attempt to harmonize human beings, const.i.tuted in practical experiences focused on goodness, with the world housing them. In some cultures, rationality resulted in the propensity to face, change, and eventually dominate nature-that is, to submit the environment to a desired order.

Reason aimed at finding practical grounds for harmony with nature.

After the phase of orality, writing served both of them equally.

It made language a mold for new experiences, a container for storing knowledge, and an effective means for the practical experience of evaluation and self-evaluation. The overwhelming majority of human accomplishments leading to the possibility and necessity of literacy were connected to the experience of human self-const.i.tution in writing. The science and philosophy upon which the scientific revolution and the revival of humanities (in particular philosophy) of the 16th and 17th centuries took place are deeply rooted in the pragmatics that made writing necessary.

This revolution is usually summarized through three main accomplishments. First: a new picture of the universe, scientifically expressed in heliocentric astronomy and philosophically a turning point in understanding the role of the human being in this world. Second: the mathematical description of motion. Third: the new conceptual framework of mechanics. As impressive as they are, their meaning is revealed in the fact that the Industrial Revolution was actually triggered by the scientific and humanistic renewal embodied in these accomplishments. The change from an agrarian economy, appropriate to a relatively reduced scale of population and work, to industrial production changed efficiency by orders of magnitude corresponding to those of the critical ma.s.s reached by humankind. All the characteristics of this new pragmatics-sequentiality, linearity, centralism, determinism (mechanical in nature), clear-cut distinctions, interdependencies-contributed to the establishment of literacy.

A lost balance

Within the pragmatic framework of the industrial society, science progressively a.s.sumed the leading role over philosophy. In fact, science changed from an elitist practical experience strongly controlled by the guardians of literacy (i.e., religion) to an experience integrated in society. Philosophy followed an inverse path, from a generalized att.i.tude of wonder to becoming the privilege of the few who could afford to contemplate the world.

Generalized in technology, the rationality of science reached its peak in the civilization of literacy through standardization and ma.s.s production of processed food, means of transportation (cars, airplanes), home building, and the use of electricity as the efficient alternative energy source. But the real challenge was yet to come.

Einstein took a daring guess. "The tragedy of modern men...is that they created conditions of existence for which, from the perspective of their phylogenetic development, they are not adjusted." The lost balance between rationality and reason is reflected in the image of all the consequences of the Industrial Revolution that led to the runaway capitalism of the 19th and 20th centuries. Exhaustion of raw materials, air and water pollution, erosion of productive land, and mental and physical strain on humans are the concrete results of this imbalance.

But if these consequences were all people and society had to cope with, the dominance of literacy in science would still be defensible. The challenge comes from the new scale of humankind for which the Industrial Revolution model and literacy are no longer adequate. Efficiency expectations, of an order of magnitude incompatible with the underlying structure of the pragmatic framework based on literacy, result in the need for a new dynamics, for mediation, acknowledgment and use of non-linearity, vagueness, and non-determinism. Science, as well as the implicit philosophic component of this new science, already approached areas of knowledge beyond the borderline guarded by literacy. On the initial success of micro-physics, the first non- literacy-based technological challenge for more energy was met in the form of relatively rudimentary weapons. In the meanwhile, it became clear that a new physics and a new chemistry, and a new biology, along with many disciplines non-existent within literacy, of a systemic focus with quality and process is what we need. Some of the scientific themes mentioned already ill.u.s.trate how science is evolving. They also ill.u.s.trate how a new epistemological condition is established, one that is based on projecting explanatory models upon the world and testing them for appropriateness and coherence. In the lead are practical experiences of science driven by cognitive resources no longer constrained by observation. What is free of epistemological doubt is that almost all the science that has emerged has reclaimed interest in the living. These new sciences, which are philosophies at the same time, are computationally disclosed biophysics, biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, medicine, and knowledge of the micro- and nano-universe.

Literacy, because of its inherent structural characteristics, is no longer the appropriate mold for such new experiences, the proper container for knowledge, or even an effective means of evaluation. Among many possible literacies, it maintains a domain of appropriateness, and within this domain it allows for local performance synchronized with the general expectation of efficiency. The s.h.i.+ft from literacy to literacies-in fact, the s.h.i.+ft to the pragmatic framework of the civilization of illiteracy- takes place against the background of conflict between means of restricted efficiency and new means for coping with larger populations, and with the newly acquired right to well-being, or even affluence. Almost all new sciences evolve in new technologies. We are already familiar with some, since we were told that from science programs (s.p.a.ce exploration, genetic research, biophysics), products as trivial as calculators, thermal fabric, and new construction materials were made available at prices affordable in the global economy. We are getting used to others as they become available: intelligent materials able to alter their structure, and self-a.s.sembling materials.

Thinking about thinking

One dominant inherited a.s.sumption is that thinking takes place only in language; that is, that language is the medium of thinking. This is a very difficult subject to deal with because, despite claims to the contrary, some people (Einstein is most quoted witness) maintain that they think in images, others in sounds, others in some combination of shapes, colors, textures, even odor and taste. Until now, no one could conclusively prove whether this is a way of speaking or a fact. But the same can be said of language. That we can express thoughts, sometimes frustratingly incomplete, in language does not necessarily mean that we think in language, or only in language. That language is a medium for explanation and interpretation, well adapted to support incomplete inductions or deductions, and sometimes hypothetical thinking (so-called abductions), is not necessarily the proof that it is the only one. Scientists think in the language of mathematical or logical formalism, or in some of the new programming languages, even if they do not carry on dialogue or try to write poetry or love letters in such languages.

Literacy, as a socially encompa.s.sing ideal, states that people should be literate because people think in language.

Accordingly, proper use of language, as set forth in the rules of literacy, is a premise for successful thinking. Besides introducing circularity-the premise turns out to be the conclusion-this is a strong a.s.sumption, with too many implications for science and for philosophy to be left unchallenged. The a.s.sumption was never entirely proven; and it is probably impossible to prove, given the strong connection between all signs partic.i.p.ating in thinking processes. Images call up words, but so do odors, flavors, textures, and sounds.

Words recall or trigger images, music, etc. The integrated nature of thinking is probably affected by mechanisms of voluntary decision-making or by genetic mechanisms structured to accept a certain sign system (language, mathematical formalism, diagrams) as dominant, without precluding modes of thought different from those resulting from the premise of literacy.

If defining thinking as language processing resulted in human experiences possible only under this a.s.sumption, there are also other ways to define thinking which, in turn, may become, if they haven't yet, necessary and beneficial. In this respect, one question can be raised: Are thinking machines, i.e., programs able to autonomously perform operations we a.s.sociate with human thinking, excluded from the discussion because they do not qualify as literate? Many scientific endeavors of our time would not have started if potential success were to be put to a literacy test. The area of new materials, able to fix themselves, and of machines resulting from self-a.s.sembly belong among our examples. Fortunately, science based on alternative practical human experiences, fairly independent of language and literacy, discovered that there are alternative ways to define thinking, and rationality, for that matter. Considering thinking together with other human traits, such as emotion, sense of humor, aesthetics, the ability to project ideas through various media, senses or languages will probably lead to even more daring scientific research.

Before considering alternative ways to define thinking and the relation between rationality and human reason, let us look at the characteristics of thinking in current praxis, science and philosophy included. The amount of language we need to function in the workplace and in social life has diminished in comparison to previous circ.u.mstances of human experience. If thinking took place only in language, that would mean that thinking itself has diminished. Very few people would be inclined to accept this conclusion. The small subset of language used in social life and in professional interaction is representative of the segmented nature of this life and of the interactions it supports. This small subset of language, the command of which does not require literacy skills, is composed of social stereotypes, but is not sufficient to const.i.tute a medium for thinking. Parallel to the diminished subset of natural language, the languages of science and technology expanded as expectations of scientific and technological efficiency increased. Expressions in the small subset of natural language that people use in order to function are generated regardless of the requirement of variety and change in our reciprocal relations. As canned expressions of limited function, they are taken over from previous circ.u.mstances, and used independently of what once determined their need. Chances are that an illiterate neighbor will never be noticed since everything pertaining to the social status of such a neighbor is literacy independent: driving, was.h.i.+ng clothes, cooking, banking, telephoning, watching television, connecting to the Internet. The trained illiterate can perform these tasks and those pertinent to work perfectly without ever displaying a literacy handicap. No doubt that the new machines, new materials, new foods, and new medicines that are more at the frontiers of science than in the mainstream of living and working will further affect the need and possibility of a civilization dominated by more than one of its means of expression and communication.

People can function as illiterates in societies of extreme specialization without being noticed as illiterates and without affecting the efficiency of the system to which they belong because their own involvement in the functioning of the world in which they live is changing. Illiterate rationality is no less goal oriented than any other rationality. It is just expressed through other means. And it is no less concerned with predicting the behavior of systems driven by languages of extreme functionality, working regardless of the literacy of the operators. Scientific literacy is either stored in skills, through training, or in the systems operated by people who know less about their functioning than the machines themselves.

Symptoms such as misuse of words, sloppy language and grammar, use of stereotypes, the inability and even unwillingness to sustain dialogue might be telling something about thinking, too-for instance, that forms of thinking based on sign systems other than language are more effective, or more appropriate to what people do in our days; or even that appropriateness in one particular sign system does not translate into appropriateness and effectiveness in another practical experience. No wonder that science, in addition to reasons implicit in the nature of scientific inquiry, s.h.i.+es away from language, from its imprecision, ambiguity, and tendency to coalesce in stereotypes, or become stereotypes under circ.u.mstances of patterned use.

Philosophy, by and large, follows the same tendency, although its alternatives are not comparable to those of science. The experience of science, and to a more limited degree that of philosophy, is simultaneously an experience in generating language capable of handling continuity, vagueness, and fuzzy relations. Spatial reasoning and replication of phenomena, usually a.s.sociated with the living as aspects of common-sense knowledge, are also const.i.tutive of the new science.

Extremely specialized human practical experiences are no longer predominantly experiences based on knowledge, but on const.i.tuting the person as information integrator. The continuous diminution of the need to think corresponds to the extreme segmentation of work and to the successful technological integration of various partial contributions resulting from this highly efficient segmented and mediated work. In one's individual life, in activities pertinent to self-maintenance (nourishment, rest, hygiene, enjoyment), the process is the same. Thinking is focused on selection: cooking one from many pre-processed meals at home, dressing in one from among many ready- made clothing items, living in pre-fabricated homes, was.h.i.+ng objects in programmed machines. But the objects embody someone else's thinking. The reified thinking projected into gene manipulation, materials, and machines leads to a reduction of live thinking. People integrate themselves in the information network, and for a greater part of their existence they act as information processors: heat something until it pops; snap or zip to close; press a b.u.t.ton that will adjust water temperature and wash cycle according to the type of clothes. More generally, people rely on the living machine that adapts to the user, re-a.s.sembles itself as requirements change, and/or fixes itself.

Rationality is more and more integrated in the technology; thus it is rationalized away from the process of individual self-const.i.tution. As tremendous as the consequences can be, they will be infinitely more dangerous if we do not start thinking about them.

Technology at this level uncouples the past from the present.

Consequently, life and actual existence are alienated.

Individuals do not have to think, they have to integrate themselves into the program embodying high efficiency rationality and reason. Today, knowledge of what goes into food, how preparation affects its qualities, what makes for a good s.h.i.+rt or sweater, what makes for a good house, what it means to wash, and how a material is affected by certain chemicals and water temperatures are rendered irrelevant. What matters is the result, not the process. What counts is efficiency, not individual know-how. Thinking is detached from thinking in the sense that all thinking, and thus rationality, is embodied outside the self-const.i.tuted human being. The appearance is that this outside thinking and this outside rationality have a life of their own. Memetic mechanisms are a testimony to the process.

In the civilization of illiteracy, we experience not only the benefits of high efficiency, but also the self-perpetuating drive of new pragmatic means. At times it appears that humans do not compete for achieving higher levels of creativity and productivity. Affluence appears as a given that takes over the need to match efficiency expectations characteristic of the global scale of humankind. To keep pace with technological progress and with scientific renewal becomes a rationale in itself, somehow disconnected from human reason. The confusing rationality of ever- increasing choices is matched by the frustrating realization that value options literally disappear, leaving no room for sensible reasoning. As a result, social and political aspects of human existence are short circuited, in particular those affecting the status of science and the condition of philosophy. Frequently, research is questioned as to whether its goals make sense at all. Only 15 years ago, half of the population in the USA suspected that science and the technology it fosters were the cause rather than the cure of many problems faced in the country, social problems included. The balance changed, but not the att.i.tude of those captive to literacy's goals and values, who oppose science and the humanities instead of seeing them in their necessary, although contradictory, unity.

Quo vadis science?

Discovery and explanation

From among the many levels at which the issue of language in relation to science is relevant, two are critical: discovery and explanation. In all fairness, it should be said that literacy never claimed to be a way towards scientific discovery, or that language is the instrument making discovery possible. The main claim is that access to science, and thus the possibility to continue scientific work, is primarily through language. This a.s.sertion was correct in the past as long as scientific practice took place in a h.o.m.ogeneous cognitive context of shared representations of time and s.p.a.ce. Once this context changed, the built-in language metrics of experience, what is called the ratio, the shared measure, started to get in the way of new discoveries and efficient explanations of previous discoveries.

Among the many new codes scientists use today, symbolic reasoning (used in mathematics, logic, genetics, information science, etc.) is the most pervasive. All in all, a transition has been made from a centralized scientific practice to new experiences, which are quite often independent of each other and better adapted to the scale of the particular phenomenon of interest. This independence, as well as sensitivity to scale, results from different objects of specialized disciplines, from different perspectives, and from different sign systems structured as research tools or as medium for const.i.tuting efficient explanatory theories.

Plato would have barred entrance to the Academy to those who did not master mathematics: "Let no one enter who is not a mathematician." In today's world, the guardians of science would require logic, and others the mastery of artificial languages, such as programming languages, themselves subject to improved focus (as in object programming) and increased computational efficiency. In the time of Socrates, "the orator," language was ascertained to be const.i.tutive of cities, laws, and the arts. In the time of the Roman poet Lucretius, physics was written in verse (7,000 lines of heroic hexameter were used to present Epicurus' atomic theory). Galileo preferred the dialogue, written in colloquial Italian, to share discoveries in physics and astronomy with his contemporaries. With Newton, equations started to replace words, and they became, almost to our time, the vocabulary of physics. Very similar developments took place in the evolution of science in China, India, the Middle East. The emergence of new visual or multimedia languages (of diagrams, systems of notation, visual representations, mixed data types) corresponds to the different nature of visual and multimedia experience. They are steps in the direction of deeper labor division, increased mediation, and new forms of human interaction-in particular, of a practice that is more intensional than extensional.