On Spoken and Written Words....

 As long as one can go back to when humans started to live in groups, clans, and tribes, they gathered around log fires, told stories and shared real or imagined experiences, strengthening camaraderie, forming bonds, and creating collectivism.

This oral tradition was aided and abetted by rhythm and form (poetic), which was easy to memorise and passed on from generation to generation. The stories morphed and changed to suit the period in which they were told, with memories altered to account for the mores of the time. Added, removed, deformed on a collective basis, so much so that to name a single source of ‘who created it’ was no longer relevant – the stories became our stories, a collective.

The faculties developed to sustain this required effort differed; repetition and rote ability were the most valued. This was long before the invention of the script to codify the sounds that represent speech, poetry, and stories, which was developed as an offshoot of recording quantities, the fundamental element of counting and numbers. Those who could read and write gained status and were given positions among the elites within the group, clan, and tribes. Memory lost out to script so much that what could be written could be kept a secret, something that could be owned rather than necessarily shared to keep it alive. The ability to scribe and the ability to read became the first form of information control – those in the know could use it to manipulate and use it for their purposes.

Written stories were read aloud, played, or acted out in front of an audience. The storytelling experience moved away from sitting around a fire and a bonding exercise to a spectacle, a show where grandeur was celebrated, the identity of winners and losers was enhanced, and a seed for success and failure as a differentiator started to be set. The ability to recollect and understand the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, and the value of sacrifice, hardships and celebrity became essential parts of mores.

Gutenberg’s contribution to the spread of storytelling and narration cannot be underestimated. With the invention of the printing press, ‘listening’ to stories could become an individual activity. It was no longer necessary to gather around a log fire, listen to someone speak from a pulpit or see a story performed on a stage. One could hear, see, and imagine them in one’s own mind; one could access an individual sense of consciousness of the characters involved, the pace of narration, and the emotive and intellectual impact became personal. One could start to think of the association of ideas incited by the stories, cross-breeding that became unique to an individual – they just didn’t tell a story, but allowed for a thought, an idea to develop in one’s own mind, resulting in the reader to authoring his version in the recesses of his consciousness, on his own terms. Thinking, creative and imaginative abilities expanded, and humans progressed at a pace unseen in the times of scribes. The Renaissance would not have been possible without the foundations laid down by Gutenberg.

What Gutenberg did for the expansion of access to books, the internet catapulted it to light speed. Whatever one wanted to know and find out was just a few clicks away. As a social good, this innovation allowed us to collect humanity together. Instead of stories being told just within the tribe or being accessible to those who could afford scribed books or printed matter, it was accessible on multiple devices, electronically. People of varying talents and disciplines could communicate and come together from afar. This connectivity and ability to share information allowed for the creation of the Large Hadron Collider, resulting in humanity discovering what gives matter its mass.

As long as it stayed a social good, the internet was something that one could pin hopes of bringing humanity together.

The dark side of humanity, which has prevailed since the dawn of time, didn’t vanish.

Even in the times when people gathered around a fire to listen to stories, the concept of othering was born; those who were us, that is, of ‘our’ group, clan, and tribe, were in the inner circle to be cared for, trusted, and protected against all those outside the ring, the outsiders. The scribed/written word created a cabal of those who could read and write, an access that allowed them to build control over those who couldn’t. The atrocities committed by the literate religious leaders, be it Abrahamic, Vedic, Oriental, or Mayan, anyone who was in a position of power could read the written word and interpret it to subjugate people. With the introduction of the printed word, a new cabal was born that used the print to spread propaganda, creating a following that would enforce an ideology or doctrine that would benefit the scheme, the elites, the rulers, and those who gained from subjugation.

As we stand today, the biggest threat to the freedom of humanity emanates from the very creation. This internet was supposed to provide the widest, the ‘free-est’ and transparent information to all those who wanted to decide for themselves and exercise personal agency. With the advent of social media, the capitalisation of social good, the predatory encroachment of AI, and the stealth through which personal data is bought for the private use of this new group, this new secular religion is unprecedented in reach and pace. It has become nearly impossible to tell whether the information that floats on the net is false, created to appear true, or something true is maligned into falsity.

The progress we made to join humanity for a common cause and the tools we created to achieve that are precisely the tools that are being used to tear us apart.

It is hard to see a way out of this, sort of an A to Z map to help us navigate. What might be of some help is: 1) to understand the motive, the why of the thing, and 2) taking a pause and trying to think through the how. This has a better than even chance of increasing the probability that what is being seen, heard or read reflects reality, perceived or otherwise.