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A Brief and Opinionated History of Written Communication

I propose that every innovation in human communication has been followed by an explosion of new ideas and creativity that is followed by a return to the mundane world of human boredom. I do not mean that after cave drawings revolutionized the hunt that Neolithic Man went back to absorbing commercial advertising the way TV Man did when he exchaged his remote for a mouse and became Computer Guy. I am, however, saying as strongly as I know how, that the road to free thought expressed by all is not a straight or smooth one. Each advance in communication begins with a better, more convenient way of creating content. These improvements allow more humans to contribute but always settles back with about the same number of real creators and the majority slouched in the cave seeking to slake their thirst for something more interesting than the cracking rock on the wall. Too harsh and more than a little twisted? Certainly the young lady that rammed into the back of my car while texting was doing more than passively taking in advice on the next gadget to purchase. Yes, I exaggerate, but to make a point. We the masses have another opportunity to become creators. Let's not laugh out loud so hard that we miss it.

Before I begin to rant let's return to our theme. And so humanity roamed the chaos of the fertile plains, gathered the eatible and delicious berry and dug into the earth for the nutrious root. All was well and good. With berry stained chins adults leaned back and performed a motion with their right hand that today would rasie the footrest on a La-Z-Boy recliner and assumed a glazed look of contentment. This life of berry eating and reclining could have gone on for the rest of human history if not for the very young. The little male children pushed rocks around through the dust and made stange motor noises. The motor noises were odd but harmless. The female children, however, did something remarkable. With love and care each young girl selected a piece of a branch and addorned it with a bit of a leaf. The babydoll may well have been humanity's first expression of abstact thought.

If a twig and a leaf can represent a small human child how big a leap is it to create little minitature symbols of all kinds of things? This is pure conjecture but it may be that thought expressed in physical symbols precedes verbal communication. I belive that it is important to point out that abstract symbols do not require a verbal counterpart. In this rambling essay I intend to concentrate on the 'written' word as audio recordings are such a late innovation but I think it would not be hard to demonstrate a similar trend of a select few annointed creators and great masses of consumers.

The advance from doll symbols to writing may very well have been facilitated by children. Many innovations spring from the minds of children and we must assume that a child was the first to place a handprint on a cave wall. Since three dimensional symbols were so popular it may have been a small step to take the children's handprints and extend them to represent every manner of thought and intent of the heart. At this point we might assume that almost everyone is fully engaged in creating and consumming media. The art is simple and obvious. Perhaps these earliest of innovations are exceptions to my rule. I believe after examining the story from cave to computer we will have ample reason to suspect that if there are exceptions to the rule they are few and seldom.

It is tempting to imagine the next stage of communication because it is one that will be very familiar. Instead let us take a moment to enjoy the achivements thus far. With physical symbols for abstact thought early humans can begin to conquor both space and time. Instead of just a cooling campfire to tell you I was here, I can leave you a note in the soot to tell you when I will return and with what intended game. We can plan and collaborate on a mutual purpose. We might think that we have gone from all is well to everything is great. We see that things cause thoughts which can be represented by other things which can turn back into thoughts in the mind of another human. This is deep magic indeed and perhaps even more than a little freighening. Is it hard to imagine the need to turn over such power to the tribe's shaman?

Ah.. but we vey much need a more compact system. Even if I had a stamp it would not do to try to send you my epic cave wall story. My campfire soot crumbles into oblivion when I try to move it. We must have symbols small enough to be etched on a shard of tree bark. So a stick that looks like an ox becomes a simple image of an ox and then on second thought we really don't need a picture at all. We can make a few marks that represent the picture which would have represented the ox. We can allow clever combinations of our symbols and compress our message even more. With alphabetic symbols we have a code and can encrypt large messages on tiny media and go mobile. This new form of communication is immensely powerful but comes with a severe limitaion. Only humans that know the code can read the messages. At this point it is no longer necessary to confiscate totem symbols to prevent the masses from reading. Now it is a simple matter of only educating the few.

The alphabetic system works on anything we can scratch or mark on. Clay tablets make stationary that is as cheap and plentiful as the earth under our feet. When wet the clay is malleable and clear impressions of letters can be created with a simple stylus made from a reed. After drying in the sun the clay tablets form brick slabs that can endure for thousands of years. The longevity of the tablets is a happy accident. The driving need was size and speed. The stylus quickly left small readable marks. These two traits will stay with us even as media shrinks to a size measured in atoms. With some organization it is also possible to imagine the beginnings of the publishing industry. One person reading to a room of scribes with reeds and clay could create a copying machine only limited in size by the range of the human voice. Every copy would be completly created by hand but with some clever verification each could be nearly an exact replica of the original. Notice that production follows a linear growth pattern. 51 scribes are required to produce 50 copies and likewise 101 scribes are required to produce 100 copies. Once we have some good copies these can be distributed to various groups of scribes to produce an almost limitless quanity of copies but with roughly one scribe needed to produce each. Again this must have seemed like deep magic and indeed the role of scribe created a new powerful position in ancient society.

Of course clay was not the only material used by the scribes. Carefully prepared animal hide was more costly but less fragile and more easily transported. It is tempting to think that the first courier who rolled up a freshly created parchement felt an innovative surge of joy. It must have felt very right to hold so much information in the palm of the hand. A donkey cart of clay tablets could now be transported cross country by a single runner. Again speed and size are the driving forces. The price of portability in this case was searchability. We must admit that searchability was never high in ancient times but if we had a room of tablets and we were looking for our favorite passage from the tale of Gilgamesh we could slide a slab out, scan it with our eyes and repeat until we found it. With compact, transportable scrolls searching becomes more of a chore. A scroll must be carefully unwound as it is read. This had to slow searching down to a crawl. The material is expensive and rolling and unrolling of the scrolls produced wear and tear. Now even if a person is able to read access to reading material may be very hard to come by unless one is in the inner circle of knowlege and power.

The scroll is a wonderful instrument for storing and transporting content but we see that it physically and symbolically promotes the idea that knowlege is to be kept wrapped up and should only be accessed by a few. With the advent of the scroll an entirely new way of looking at the world is ushered in. The world of natural law and family gives way to the world of written law. The oral tradition passed on around the campfire solidifies on clay and stone and then is rolled up and sealed in a scroll. The code of Hammurabi, the Hebrew scriptures and many others provide a basis for daily living and societal structure.

For two thousand years or more the scroll maintained its position as the ultimate container of human wisdom. The next innovation rocked the world with its simplicity. The codex has all of the benefits of the scoll and comes with super powerful search capabilities. By taking the parchment of the scroll and slicing it into pages the reader is no longer bound to meticulously moving from the beginning of a document through every ensuing piece of content to get to the desire text. Imagine the fear and confusion when the first scroll was sliced to pieces. What a mess. How could all of the vital information be kept from scattering and becoming disorganized and lost? The answer was a binding that pretty much turned the scoll into a paperback. The codex or book still felt great in the hand and pound for pound contained every bit as much information but now a well placed thumb could cause information to leap before the eyes of the scholar at will.

Early Christianity spread like a wildfire in this new environment and generated a new library of religious texts while rekindling a fervent interest in what was once sealed in the scrolls of the Hebrew bible. Thumbs were indeed very busy finding their way through codexes of Latin translations of the Hebrew religious texts but more importantly quills were dipped in ink and were flying across leafs of parchment. Letters were written to and from the early Christian thinkers. The letters were read and then passed from town to town. Controversies boiled and tempers often flaired but the scraps of texts that remain indicate that the world for a few decades had become a place where ideas could be exchanged like never before. Paul the Letter Writer appeals to his readers as fellow reasoning human beings. He is a writer and he is also a reader, not just of ancient texts but of letters. He writes, he reads and he responds. The letters are passionate and personal. All too soon the climate turns from personal letters to authoritative letters and then attention becomes focused on a fixed cannon of scripture and even the remnants of Paul's letters are sealed away.

Hundreds of years pass and what was once personal becomes official and hidden to be administered only as necessary. The next revolution completed the transition from the cave wall to commercial enterprise. Gutenberg noticed that most of the enormous cost of printing could be eliminated by cleverly allowing the carved printing blocks to be rearranged as needed. Now instead of carving the words for an entire page layout, precarved individual letters could be reused again and again. The impact of moveable type was profound. The cost of publishing must have diminished by an order of magnitude. What once require rooms full of scribes could now be accomplished by a few individuals with inky fingers and a massive machine.

Massive machines are costly and although the cost of printing a pamplet is cheaper than ever the gates to publication actually became much narrower. A king or tyrant needs only to control a few printing presses to control printed communication. Scrolls were protected by religious tradition and came to be known as sacred. With the printing press a new idea began to take shape. Printed books were authorized. Think how this word corrupts its root. To author a book is the creative activity of an individual. To authorize a book is a non-creative act of power. With the creativity of the many channeled through the narrow minded gates of the few it would seem that history is still not ready for a revolution of thought and yet the revolution was fermenting. There is little use of a freely available press without a multitude of readers.

The Idea

At no time since the invention of moveable type has communication been advancing so rapidly. In the 19th century the telegraph made communication instantaneous and put the speedy Pony Express out of business. It is hard to imagine that a new use of technology could have a greater impact on communication. The move from hand written letters delivered by horseback to dots and dashes that could cross the continent in under a second changed the course of history. A greater change is in progress. Information is being transmitted faster and to more connection points than at any time in human history. The World Wide Web is giving rise to powerful new ways of communication that blur the line between mass media and personal conversation. Some of these advances are obvious but others seem like such a natural extension of our human desire to communicate that they can go nearly unnoticed. The Web has become in a short number of years simply the way the world works.

The Web's impact on education is profound. A decade ago it was obvious that the Web could provide powerful research tools. The new engineering library at Stanford University will house 85 percent of its printed material off site.^[1] The library's creators know that the speed and convenience of electronic media are crucial to a good education. And yet finding and consuming online material is only a part of the Web revolution. A complete education involves learning to both attain and contribute new information. At the moment the Web is the great facilitator of this conversation.

As learners and educators we can join in this revolution by gaining a better understanding of the technologies and open standards that make the Web work. Open School Games provides examples of how individuals can use the Web for enjoyment and education. -Charlie July 2010

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References

1. ^ Stanford Engineering Library Embraces Econtent; 98,000 Volumes Now Offsite