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. With The medium/message problem
Posted Under: America
I’ve said to a number of people in casual conversation that crowds will now line up for an iPhone the way people used to line up for the midnight release of some noteworthy musician’s new CD. David Brooks gets at something related to this in a column recently (I linked to it already last week, in the linkpile rotation at right) in which he argued that “over the past few years, there has been a tectonic shift in the basis of good taste.”
He talks about 1400 to 1965 as a long reign of a hierarchical version of good taste; this was followed by 40 years when “status rewards went to the ostentatious cultural omnivores.” And now?
On or about June 29, 2007, human character changed. That, of course, was the release date of the first iPhone.
On that date, media displaced culture. As commenters on The American Scene blog have pointed out, the means of transmission replaced the content of culture as the center of historical excitement and as the marker of social status.
Now the global thought-leader is defined less by what culture he enjoys than by the smartphone, social bookmarking site, social network and e-mail provider he uses to store and transmit it….
Today, Kindle can change the world, but nobody expects much from a mere novel.
Whatever you make of the specifics, I think that from a broad perspective he’s onto something here, a kind of medium/message problem: There’s a lot of celebration of various media that will bring us interesting new messages that the old setup squelched. There’s a lot less evidence that the messages we get now are really that much better (as opposed to different).
You might disagree, but for the moment I don’t want to get bogged down in that specific argument.
Rather what I want to say is that I’m thinking (hoping?) that what Brooks is talking about isn’t a tectonic shift, but a phase. I think we’re having a little trouble sometimes figuring out the relationship between technology and culture — which shapes which, and how. But at some point the focus will shift from “imagine the potential” to “here is the new cultural expression that has emerged that is exciting on its own, because of its message, not because of the medium.”
Meanwhile, I poked around that American Scene blog Brooks mentioned, and it’s pretty interesting. I think maybe two of the posts he’s referencing are this one and this one. Worth reading for yet another point of view.
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Reader Comments
“Rather what I want to say is that I’m thinking (hoping?) that what Brooks is talking about isn’t a tectonic shift, but a phase. I think we’re having a little trouble sometimes figuring out the relationship between technology and culture — which shapes which, and how. But at some point the focus will shift from “imagine the potential” to “here is the new cultural expression that has emerged that is exciting on its own, because of its message, not because of the medium.””
I don’t think Brooks is really talking about that. He’s a cranky conservative in a slightly-more-clever candy coating, but a conservative no less, and thus for him, society is always getting worse, culture more crass, the kids un-alright, etc. He tosses in familiar cultural references to make himself palatable to liberals and moderates, but I really see the theme running through all his writing is a nasty sort of dismissiveness of most contemporary culture as worthless, and its adherents as hypocrites.
What *you’re* talking about, however, is absolutely right-on. With any new technology (esp. those allowing for creative expression), there is a three-step dance where first people react to the technology, then they master it, and then they start putting it to their own purposes. We’re in early days with many technologies, still, and so relatively few new digital technologies have produced great and authentic art native to their mediums. Not none, though – computer-generated visual effects in film have been around relatively longer, and whatever one might think of the “Lord of the Rings” films and Pixar’s productions on their own merits (I certainly think they’re brilliant), they are without a doubt enormous achievements within the medium.
I like the three-step dance theory, and I hope you’re right.
of course, “we shall see,” but i lean toward the “phase” explanation too. every time a new technology comes along we’re blinded by the technology itself, and then the newness wears off, and then we focus on what the technology does or what we use it for.