Orators color American history, and none more so, perhaps, than Abraham Lincoln. He is most well known (in orating) for his debates with Stephen Douglas. Even these events, though, were beacons of entertainment. Postman writes that these debates took on the air of carnivals, surrounded by rides and fun. These audiences were not more intellectually able than audiences of today, just in tune with a different kind of entertainment. Even this speech is an extension of the written word, and the people were in tune with it because they were entertained by the written word.
Print gave way to analytical thought in a way never before seen. Logic and reason were important in a way that they never had been before. It was a time, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, that religion was being scrutinized in a way that it never had been before. These churches did, though, lay the foundation for the modern university structure. Typography began to decline in the 1860s, documented by Frank Presbey. Postman calls this entire age the Age of Exposition.
Are we still in the Age of Show Business?
How did the importance of rational thought shape our reliance on the written word?
No comments:
Post a Comment