Thesis: Our tech is hostile to absolute truth

Part I: What do churches, classrooms and old "family rooms" have in common?

In the early 1990s, I began teaching a rather unusual Communications 101 course at Milligan College (now university), one that offered my quick take on the history of mass communications. I taught the same class again after moving to Palm Beach Atlantic University.

After considering the strengths of oral culture, and written language, we hit the printing press and blitzed all the way to the emerging force called the Internet.

Since this was a Christian liberal-arts college, I asked the dean if I could include a lecture in each unit that described how each new form of mass-communications tech interacted with some specific, symbolic issue in religious life. I wrote that goal into the course title: “Introduction to Mass Media — Culture and Religion.” The course catalogue summary stated:

An introductory look at systems and theories in today’s media, including print, film, radio, public relations, television, and fiberoptic networks. This survey includes the consideration of ways in which moral and religious issues are addressed by secular news and entertainment media.

In other words, we wanted to talk about life in the world in which we lived.

In the very first lecture, I made the following promise — honoring the journalism doctrine that one should not bury the lede. Here goes: “By the end of this semester, you will understand this statement. We live in a culture that is technologically hostile to the concept of absolute truth.”

Please be patient with me as I explain what that statement has to do with the simple line-drawing videos embedded throughout this post. Also, this is the first of two posts on a very complex topic.

Veteran Rational Sheep readers will not be surprised to learn that my claim about technology and absolute truth was connected to the mantra that guided my University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign graduate work: “Technology shapes content.”

For starters, let’s return to a post near the start of this Substack project: “How simple media technologies can affect what we believe.”

The dean of the communication program, at that time, was the late James W. Carey — a legend in journalism history and mass-media studies who was best known for his years at Columbia University. He helped greatly with my master’s project (on why newsrooms struggle with religion-news coverage) and I was able to take his famous seminar on the history of media technology.

All together now: “Technology shapes content.”

I’ll always remember the first day of that seminar, when Carey entered and spoke these words: “Would the Protestant Reformation have happened without movable type?” Then he walked out of the classroom — which left us all wondering (this was his goal, of course) why that question was so important.

While I was teaching at Milligan, in the 1990s, the Internet was emerging as a powerful force — but we were still living in the cable-television age.

In other words, the dominant force in the lives of most Americans was visual media, delivered by the television in the “family room” and other smaller TVs scattered throughout the house. I asked students to count the TVs in the homes in which they were raised and the average number was three. It wasn’t unusual for a student to say five or six.

How many bookshelves were there? Some of these homes contained several (or many) and reading was a common part of family life. In others, there might be two or three dozen books in the home and that was that. Yes, it was common to learn that homes with lots of televisions tended to have fewer books.

In other words, visual media was the norm. With that in mind, consider this paragraph from a recent Rational Sheep post with this headline: “Thinking about reading and its ties to thinking.”

Yes, a picture may be worth a thousand words, but different people viewing the same picture will come away with very different sets of words. In other words, the grammar of the visual is hostile to the communication of absolute truths and accurate information. You cannot put the Nicene Creed into a photo collage.

Now, apply that big idea to a great rock anthem from that era, as shown in its classic music video.

Now lets talk about the line drawings in this post.

In that first lecture, I asked students to draw three large images in their notebooks (yes, students used to take notes in spiral notebooks or on large notepads).

First, I asked them to draw the sanctuary inside their church — facing forward. Since almost all of the students were evangelical Protestants, of one brand or another, that meant there was a pulpit in the center of the typical drawing.

Then I asked them to lightly draw “sight lines” from each pew or chair to the pulpit.

Yes, if there were Catholics or other liturgical Christians in the class, then that meant there was an altar at the center of their images. Think about the theological content in that visual reality. What would you need to add in a drawing of an Eastern Orthodox temple?

Next, I asked the students to repeat this process, but this time they needed to draw a typical school classroom.

In the 1990s, most classrooms had a blackboard in front to soon (#HintHint) be replaced by a massive visual display screen. Often, the focal point in the old-school classroom was a podium or desk — where the professor would stand or sit while delivering lectures.

Once again, I asked students to draw sight lines from their classroom’s chairs to the podium, desk or blackboard.

As you would expect, in 99% of the images the drawings of the classrooms were very similar to those of the church sanctuaries.

The sight lines, you see, all connected with a point occupied by a leader, a teacher, who delivered authoritative content of some kind — important information, facts, theories, big ideas, history, even doctrines. Perhaps even Truth claims with a Big T.

Finally, I asked the students to draw the den or the “family room” in the home in which they were raised. At this point, readers under the age of 40 will need to try to imagine a world very different from the one they know.

It was crucial, I told the students, to include all of the couches and chairs located in this room. Yes, we were going to draw sight lines, once again.

The big question: Were these chairs arranged for interpersonal communication between the people sitting in the room or did the sight lines lead somewhere else?

In the overwhelming majority of cases, the “family room” sight lines converged on a large television screen. You could say that this was a small version of a theater. I argued that it also functioned as a school or church.

How many hours did the typical family member spend in this classroom, receiving various kinds of content — movies, news programs, comedies, documentaries, sporting events, etc.? How were religious images, ideas and doctrines faring in this visual tsunami?

If someone in the “family room” disagreed with the choice of sermons, parables or lectures, did they have other options in the typical home? Could young people, for example, retreat to their individual bedrooms and watch their own brands of authoritative visual content, perhaps even programs that their parents would almost certainly reject?

Let me conclude with another drawing challenge, one that is almost certainly impossible to sketch in a notepad.

Where are the glowing digital screens in the typical home today?

How many are there, when you include smartphones, tablets, desktop computers and television displays mounted on walls?

If the television was the “authoritative” teacher or preacher in the second half of the 20th century, what has taken its place? When people watch “television” these days, what are they usually holding in their hands?

Yes, we have moved past the old visual age. Either that, or we have created a totally new kind of visual age, one in which the images and chopped-up texts swirl around our brains like hummingbirds on cocaine.

Correct?

Next, in Part II: What serves as a Catechism in most homes today?