The transforming power of gadgets

It is now seventy plus years since the "east Africa" revival blazed across this part of the country, and that generation is almost completely gone - along with the stories of those days.  I wish I knew more about it, but there is just not much written available here.  It is commonly said that when an old man dies here "a whole library dies with him".  Being largely an oral/aural culture this, no doubt, is a true saying, and it is a sad loss.  Heaven, I suppose, will be the more glorious, as the saints from across the ages, and from "every nation under heaven," gather to tell, with glorified animation and eloquence, the stories of God's intimate and mighty deeds done on behalf of His people, for the glory of His Name, during the days of their sojourning.  I have no doubt that these stories will be worth the wait.  But I'm also convinced that I will have to wait until then on the stories of the revival - unless someone does a TV documentary or some kind of special posting on YouTube.  

It has become fascinating to me to listen to the laments of teachers and professors throughout the world who are complaining that "students just don't read anymore".  Here, if a person can read, there is very little available.  But it seems that in the "West," we have passed into what some have called a "post-literate" age.  Students would rather listen to their iPod while they keep up with their friends on Facebook instead of reading a "Realbook".  

New technology has a way of changing the way we think and even what is important to think about.  I believe it was Marshall McLuhan, who first wrote about how the introduction of new technology always reshapes the structuring of our thinking.  Once it is assimilated into everyday living it takes a life of its own and we never notice. 

Take the clock for instance.  When God created the world, He set the sun, moon, and stars in the sky to regulate the night and the day and the seasons of the year.  Even after the flood, that sad "un-creation" account, He made sure to point out that He was going to make certain that there would be order and regularity in life on the earth through the predictability of days and seasons which would, no doubt, be governed by these luminous time-keepers.  But they are not even noticed anymore, for in our world of seconds and minutes manufactured by this piece of technology called a clock, the sun and the seasons, these God ordained time-keepers become irrelevant.  They no longer hold any value to us for regulating life.  We prefer (or just don't know anything different) to mince our lives according to the dictates of the artificial, mechanical representation of time produced by this creation of ours.  

As a tool the clock is a wonderful thing.  But rarely do we understand the impact that our gadgets will have on how we see and know the world around us.  That which is intended to serve us very often ends up ruling us.  The clock made us into time-keepers, then time-savers, and now time-servers.  The same holds true for the phonetic alphabet.  To be able to see one's utterances rather than only hear them is no small thing.  We have not merely traded the ear for the eye as the organ of the body that should have preeminence, we have restructured the way the mind works.  This was driven home to me as I was being taught how to learn this language here.  My teachers forbade me to use my eyes (I couldn't write anything down).  I had to learn with my ears, by listening.  Every bone in my body rebelled against this and all I could "think" about was how much I wanted to write down what I was hearing so I could see it, break it apart phonetically, then try to re-say it.  But is this how a child first learns to speak?  It is certainly now how an African, who usually knows two or more languages learns.

The priority of writing, of making visible one's utterances, is losing ground in our day of electronic media.  This is what is so troubling to so many educators whose minds have been trained like mine to see rather than hear. Along with learning to see speech, much, much more has happened as a result of the invention of the phonetic alphabet. A whole way of thinking, and whole disciplines of thinking have developed.  

You see (pun intended), writing freezes speech and in so doing gives birth to the grammarian and the historian. Written words can then be analyzed and studied long after they have been spoken - and learning can be done in isolation from other people.  But sound is related to the present moment and situates us in community. As Richard Jensen indicates, where a "word is received by the listener, there is always community."  There is something rather profound that happens when the spoken voice is heard by the listening ear, something that connects.  For sound resonates from the interior of one person and penetrates the interior of another person.  It enters our bodies.  Something personal is shared between the listener and the one who speaks.  

With the advent of print came the advent of individualism.  Surrounded by books, Descartes could say, "I think therefore I am".  But here in Uganda, it could be said, "We hear, therefore we are." The spoken word, therefore, implies/creates community (at least in theory - sin has a way of complicating everything!).  Print produced the solitary scholar/scientist, but with the coming of electronic communication, specifically the internet, we are seeing the re-emergence of the priority of community.  There are now all kinds of communities springing up as a result of the world-wide web - even scholarly communities.

Do you "see" what I am "saying"?!

Now, why have I rambled on and on like this?  What is the purpose of my musings?  With the flood of new electronic gadgets coming in from around the world (especially China), Africa and Africans will most likely bypass the mind structuring influence of the book (and it is more profound than you know).  With the advent of the polysensory forms of communication provided by electronic communication (TV and internet) it will be increasingly difficult to get and keep people motivated to read books.  That is why I said earlier that I may have to wait until heaven to learn about the east Africa revival - unless someone posts a short video on YouTube.  

Notice the pictures.  When we took the first picture above we were in the middle of Maasai land where there was no electricity, yet there was cell phone coverage!  And the lady's house, in the second picture, was not much bigger than what you see in the photo.  It had no chairs, she still cooked over charcoal, yet she had a T.V.!  The invasion of the gadgets has arrived! - but how will they shape us?  They obviously already demand attention!  Just like in America, front and center of the living space is a TV.   I have even been in remote villages where there was no electricity and found young men who gave me their email address!  

Now listen to Marshall McLuhan (again, pun intended!).  "An age in rapid transition is one which exists on the frontier between two cultures and between conflicting technologies.  Every moment of its consciousness is an act of translation of each of these cultures into the other." This is probably more exaggerated in the West than here, for the technology of print has been the dominant form of communication and has held sway over the formation of the mind, and now the dominance has shifted to electronic media.  But for us in east Africa, who have never really experienced the dominance of the print culture, this "rapid transition" is more of the extreme sight of seeing a Maasai warrior reaching under his cloth wrap and pulling out a ringing cell phone!