I admit to that fact that I’ve said at least once in my past history classes, “why do I have to learn this? I’m not going to use it later.” Many times after that I have eaten my words, and still today books like these show me that there will always be something more to learn, something more to know about and to be interested in. George Santayana once wrote in The life of reason, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” and I completely agree with him. If we do not learn from ours (and others) past mistakes, we’d just forge onwards wasting time by making the same mistakes and getting nowhere in what we are trying to accomplish.
This book has shown me the similarities of not only how communication has developed over the years, but also how society reacts to new ideas, ways of thinking, and things that they do not understand. Many who try to change our world are ridiculed till death then recognized either after they’re dead or because they’re dead. What is with our society that condemns what they do not understand, like how the electric telegraph was considered too close to black magic at one point in time?
This even shows with famous (during our time of course) painters, composers and writers. Emily Dickinson only published 7 poems in her lifetime, Van Gogh sold only one poem in his lifetime, Gauguin was broke most of his life, and Bach was only really famous 100 years after his death when they finally started to recognize what an amazing composer he was. Is this a trend that will continue? This is common knowledge to most, yet we still appreciate things the most only after they’re gone. I guess that just leaves me to wonder if some things are better off appreciated when you don’t have to deal with them anymore, or if we are just better at judging one’s accomplishments only after they’re gone and accomplished the end of their own life.
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Although I do believe our society is hardly progressing any faster than it has in the past, I am confident in saying that the bursts of innovation are getting successivly larger. Like a droplet into still water, the rings of progress closest to the point of contact will be the more massive(over time).
the evolution of infotech works in such a way that by allowing us greater access to info, we have the ability to more quickly recognize, exploit and or condem innovators of our time. There will always be those individuals so far ahead of their time they recieve no credit for their efforts, but I believe the more people we have diffusing information the better the chance great thinkers have of gaining recognition,(or at least, thinking greater thoughts). In contrast, and goes without saying, some great thinkers would not be as great, in retrospect, if they were given proper credit in their day. so theres that side of the green-grass aswell...
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