From Books to the Internet: The Increasing Danger of Disrupted Intellection

Last updated on: May 12, 2009 at 1:16 pm by Henry Karlson

From Books to the Internet: The Increasing Danger of Disrupted Intellection 2009-05-12T13:16:40-05:00 Henry Karlson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

In the Phaedrus, Plato points out that writing is an often abused memory aid. He finds it troubling that once something is written down, we do not feel the need to remember it. If we want to know what was said, we look it up. This is shown, for example, when Socrates discusses a story about Theuth (Thoth) and Thamus, wherein Theuth, who believes his invention of writing is of tremendous importance, is told by Thamus of its danger. While books might appear to do one thing (support memory), they do the opposite: “If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be burden to their flows.”[1] Certainly we can point out how ironic it was for Plato to write these words downs, to point out the limits of writing through writing. But this is the kind of irony which philosophy is used to. Indeed, it is central for us to realize the limits of reason, and to find out that reason can be used to show them: reason can never validate its own premises. That is, reason must, in this fashion, be seen as “unreasonable.”

Plato was not only concerned with the fact that books leave our memory undeveloped, but also with the reality that relying upon them tends to leave our ability to think underdeveloped as well. We rely upon the written word too much as a philosophical crutch – that is, we can look up the answers of others, and use that to shortcut not only our own education, but also our own consideration of the questions which face us today. While truth should be discerned through the higher parts of the person, through the soul, we end up allowing others to do our own work for us in our intellectual laziness. Or, as Ficino put it, “Socrates moreover laughs at the study of writing in the person, that is, who trusts that through letters he can reveal indubitable truth to posterity. In the manner of the Pythagoreans, he affirms that the contemplation and transmission of truth occurs in rational souls rather than in books.”[2] If we can find a book which appears to answer questions we have, even if we have to take their words out of context, and change the meaning they intended for their words, we feel as if everything is now answered if we quote it to others, when in actuality we have not truly wrestled with the question at all.

Modern technology has made these problems far worse, and in ways which are not always discernable. Once, you would still have to listen to a lecture in person, but now, through video, you do not. And so what was said about the written word now can also be said about the oral word. While Plato mentioned that in a written text, the words cannot be questioned to correct misunderstandings,[3] with video, we get speakers who no longer will be able to discern the ways their audience might be misconstruing their words, and so will no longer able to correct misunderstandings. Knowing that a lecture or speech will be videotaped also makes it that an audience will not feel as if they have to pay close attention to the words they hear, because they will be able to go over them later (without the aid of the speaker interpreting their own words if a question arises). But how often does one really go back to those words, look over old lectures? If people rarely watch the films and videos the own, once they own them (as Žižek points out)[4], what are we to expect of those videos they don’t own, and have less interest in watching? Save for the most rare of individuals, it is likely that if someone records their speech, their words will become irrelevant as soon as they speak them (for no one is paying as much attention to them as they should).

This phenomenon is especially prominent with the internet. More and more resources are being put together and being made accessible to those who want to use them. Yet, the more access there is, the less they tend to be used. Notwithstanding the fact that it is much more difficult to read lengthy text online, people usually look through them as resources to mine, making it less likely, not more, that they will actually be properly read ever again (obviously, a few people will read them, but now far less will feel the need, since they don’t need to read the book now to find the nugget or two of information they want to get out of it as if the book were a resource to strip-mine).

In this way, one can say that written texts are becoming more hidden the more accessible they become. With more information easily available to the average person today than any other time in history, less real knowledge and understanding is being given out than ever before. It’s all becoming lost in the information highway. Why read a book until you have the need for its facts, and why go through the book if you can just data-mine its words for the few facts you want out of it? By removing their resources, their words, from their original surroundings, the rest of the book, it becomes even easier for the material to be abused, to be used for an ideological pretext which runs counter to the meaning the text was meant to have, and even given, in its proper context. Through the internet, proof-texting has become a greater problem than ever before (everyone can search for and find quotes which support their desired end). Authoritarian use of quotations short-circuits the need to think: so many on the internet engage debates in this fashion. Since they aren’t reasoning out their arguments, but letting the dislodged words of others make their points for them, there really is no reasoning one can do with them in return. They just search for quotes they like, pile them up next to each other, and if anyone disagrees, tell them to “take it up with the author(s) of the quotes,” while it is obvious that the editor of these lists has not done that work themselves.

While it is true that modern technology gives us the ability to search and locate vast amounts of information in short amounts of time, we must not confuse this for education, nor as any sort of intellectual activity. At best, it should be used to introduce us to new concepts and ideas to explore beyond the net, in the original sources, with whatever real time is needed to engage the material – both in reading these sources in full, but also in thinking through what one reads, discerning what is good and what is not in them. With the speed of information and how it is processed on the net, it is clear that so much is being provided and lost before it can ever be properly engaged. We need to make sure we don’t let our lives imitate what happens on the net. If want to gain wisdom, we need to slow down. We need to be able to digest what it is we examine. This might even mean, we need to reconsider how we use the net, and find better, more productive, more realistic ways to engage each other once again.

Footnotes

[1] Plato, Phaedrus in Plato: The Collected Dialogues. Ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Pinceton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 275a-b.

[2] Marsilio Ficino, Phaedrus Commentary in Marsilio Ficino: Commentaries on Plato Volume I: Phaedrus and Ion. Trans. Michael J.B. Allen (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008), 49.

[3] “It is the same with written words; they seem to talk to you as though they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say, from a desire to be instructed, they go on telling you just the same thing forever. And once a thing is put in writing, the composition, whatever it may be, drifts all over the place, getting into the hands not only of those who understand it, but equally of those who have no business with it; it doesn’t know how to address the right people, and not address the wrong.” Plato, Phaedrus, 275e.

[4] “Another strange phenomenon brings us closer to the heart of the matter: almost every VCR aficionado who compulsively records hundreds of movies (myself among them) is well aware that the immediate effect of owning a VCR is that one actually watches fewer films than in the good old days of a simple TV set without a VCR; one never has time for TV, so instead of losing a precious evening, one simply tapes the film and stores it for a future viewing (for which, of course, there is almost never time … ). So although I do not actually watch films, the very awareness that the films I love are stored in my video library gives me a profound satisfaction and, occasionally, enables me simply to relax and indulge in the exquisite art of far niente – as if the VCR is in a way watching them for me, in my place .. the VCR stands here for the ‘Big Other’, for the medium of symbolic registration,” Slajov Žižek, The Plague of Fantasies (New York: Verso Books, 2008), 145.

Previous Post

May 12, 2009

America on "sectarian Catholicism"

Next Post

May 12, 2009 Subsidarity: What it Really Means

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 2019 A Consistent Ethic of Life Aaron Weldon Abortion absurdity Abuse Scandal Academics Adoption Advent Africa agreement/disagreement with Church teaching Alexander Schmemann Alexham Alterity America Amnesty International Anarchism angels Anglicanism Animals Annual Statistics Anthony Anxietas Apocalyptic Apophatic Appalachia Aquinas Art Atheism Atonement Augustine Authority Baptism Beauty Bible biblical criticism biblical scholarship Bioethics Bishops Black Catholics Black Theology Blackadder Blogs Books Breastfeeding Brett Salkeld Buddhism Bush administration Byzantine Catholic Calvinism Canada Canon Law Capital Punishment Capitalism Caryll Houselander Catholic Blog Awards Catholic Blogging Catholic League Catholic Social Teaching Catholic Worker Movement Catholicity CFL Charity Children Chris West Christ and Culture Christian Democracy Christian Unity Christmas Christology Church Church Doctrine Church History Climate Change Cohabitation Colbert Collegiality Communion Communism Comparative Theology Competition Conferences conscience conscience rights Consequentialism Consistent Life Ethics Consumerism Contraception Contrition Conversion Converts Coptic COVID-19 Creation Critical Thinking Cross Cuba Culture Culture of Death Culture of Life Darfur David Cruz-Uribe David Wheeler-Reed Death Death Penalty Democracy Demons Desert Fathers Devil Dialogue dignity Disability Disarmament discernment Discipleship discrimination Dissent Distributism Division Doctrine Domestic Church Dorothy Day Double Effect Doubt Down syndrome Driving Early Church Easter Eastern Churches Ecclesiology Economics Economy Ecumenism Education El Salvador Election Election 2020 Ellul Embryonic Stem Cell Research Empire Energy Enlighenment Environmentalism Ephraim Radner Episcopal Church epistemology Equality Eschatology Ethics Eucharist Europe Euthanasia Evangelization Evil Evolution Excommunication F.X. Durrwell Facism Facts Fair Trade Faith Family Fashion Feddie Feminism Feminist theology Fertility Fetal Rights Fiction Film Finances First Things flags Folk Religion Food Foreign Affairs Forgiveness Frank Sheed Free Speech Freedom gay & lesbian persons Genocide George W. Bush George Weigel Gerald L. Campbell Girard/Mimetic Theory Global Warming Globalization Gnosticism Good Friday Grace Gratitude Greed Grey Cup 2009 Guadalupe Guest Post Guest Posts Gun Control Gustave Martelet Habitat for Humanity Hans Urs von Balthasar Harry Potter Hate Speech Health Health Care Healthcare Heather King Hebrew Bible Henri de Lubac Henry Karlson Herbert McCabe Heresy HHS Mandate Controversy History Holidays Holiness Holy Spirit Homiletics Homily Homosexuality Hope Hospitality How Far Can We Go? How Far Can We Go? Human Person Human Rights Humanae Vitae Humility Humor Hunger Hunting Identity Idolatry Ignacio Ellacuría Imagination Immigration In Memoriam Income Inequality Inculturation Indigenous People Individualism Inklings Intellect Interdependence Internet Interpretation Interviews Introduction Iraq War Islam Israel Jain James Alison James Martin Jazz Jesus Christ Jews Joe Biden Joe Hargrave Johann Baptist Metz John Allen John Henry Newman John Paul II John the Baptist John XXIII Jonathan Josef Pieper Joseph (the husband of Mary) Joseph Bernardin Joseph Ratzinger Josh Brumfield Journals Joy Judgment Just War Justice Kari Lundgren Karl Rahner Katerina Ivanovna Kenya Keynes Kingdom of God Kyle R. Cupp Labor Language Latin America Law Leanne Ogasawara Legion of Christ Leisure Lent Liberalism Liberation Theology Libertarianism Libya Lies Life life & dignity & responsibility of the human person Literature Little Way Liturgical music Liturgical Year Liturgy Living Simply Living Wage Local Church Lombard Lord of the Rings Louis Dupre Love M.Z. Magic Magisterium Mark DeFrancisis Mark Gordon Marriage Martin Luther Martin Luther King Jr. Martyrdom Marxism Mary Masculinity Matt Talbot Matthew Fish Matthew Levering McCain Media Memorial Day Mennonites Mental Illness mercy Michael Iafrate Middle East militarism Miroslav Volf Mitt Romney Modesty Moral Theology Morality Mormonism Morning's Minion Mother Teresa Music Muslims Natalie Nate Wildermuth Nationalism Native Americans Nature Nazis Neuhaus New Evangelization New York City News NFP nihilism Nonviolence Not Abortion Nova's Ordo Nuclear weapons Nuns Obama Occult Old Age Opus Dei Ordination ordination of women original sin Orthodoxy Oscar Romero Other Voices Pacifism Palestine Palin Papacy Papal Peace Messages Papal Social Encyclicals Particular Affections Partisanship Patriotism Paul Paul Ryan Paul VI Peace Pentimento persecution Personalism Phantastes Philosophy PKD Planned Parenthood Pluralism Poetry Policraticus Politcal Apathy Politics Poll Pope Benedict XVI Pope Francis Pope John Paul II Pope Leo XIV Population Postcolonialsim Poverty Power Prayer Preaching Predictions Predictions for 2012 President Barack Obama priestly formation & discernment Pro-Life Progress Prophetic Witness Proportionalism Public Diplomacy Public Policy Question Quotes Rachel Maddow Racism Radical Catholic Mom Radical Catholicism Raymund Schwager Real Catholic TV Real Presence Reconciliation Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange Religion religious freedom Responsibility Ressourcement Resurrection Rick Garnett Ridiculous Crap You Never Thought You'd See Robert Barron Roe v. Wade Roman Curia Rome Russia Sacraments Saints Salvation History Sam Harris Sam Rocha Same-sex Marriage Saskatchewan Roughriders Satire School of the Americas Science Scripture Seamless Garment Second Vatican Council Seeing Sex sexual violence Sexuality Sia Sin social justice Social Security Socialism Society of Jesus Sofia Loves Wisdom Solidarity Sophia soteriology Soutenus Spirituality Sports St. Dismas St. Joseph Stanley Hauerwas Statistics Stimulus Suffering Sunday Reflections Supernatural Supreme Court Symbolism Syria Taxing Technology Terrorism The State The Tea Party The Trump Administration Theological Anthropology Theology Theotokos Thomas Merton Throwaway Culture Tim Muldoon Tim Riley Tim Tebow Time Titian Tolkien Torture Toys Trade Traditionalism Transgender Transportation Transubstantiation Trinity Truth TV U.S. Affairs Uncategorized Unions unity among people who disagree US Catholicism USCCB Usury Utilitarianism Utopia Valentine's Day Vatican Vatican II Veterans Vicarious Suffering Video Violence Virgin Mary Vocations Voluntary Associations Voluntary Poverty Voting Vox Nova vox nova blog war War and Peace War Strategy Wealth Weirdness Welfare state Women Women Priests Work Woundedness Youth

Select a Month June 2026 May 2025 February 2025 January 2025 July 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 July 2023 March 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 November 2021 September 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who said, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

David Solomon Moses Paul