I don't watch much television. But last night something did catch my eye. BBC4 broadcast a programme titled Inside The Medieval Mind.
It had real resonance for me. The good professor Robert Bartlett, of St Andrew's University, described how medieval man understood the world - as a place of mystery and enchantment.
"The world was a book written by God. But as the Middle Ages drew to a close, it became a place to be mastered, even exploited."
That sounds familiar. The beginning of the Renaissance (let's call it 1304) began the period of disenchantment with the world - as we learned more about it we found there weren't sea monsters, or people with faces in their chests, or with a dog's head. We demystified the world and we did it through travel, exploration and the exchange of information.
We did this in the physical world. So it took 15 centuries for Greek philosophy to reach and impact on the West.
With the emergence of the network in the digital world it feels to me like the end of another era of mystification. I suspect its impact will take rather less than 15 centuries.
I wonder if it is ourselves who will be 'disenchanted' (ie we will demystify our 'selves') this time around?
The further ahead you look - the faster you go | davidpcushman AT gmail.com | These are my views and my views only.
I agree with you, though I prefer to term it "re-enchantment" - using networks to re-integrate the self by expressing its many aspects.
ReplyDeleteIf VRM is about de-msytifying our selves, it does so by drawing away the veil (to US) from what we've spent, on what with who, with what result (personal data analytics - MS Money for buying, not banking)... and drawing away the veil (to THEM, to suppliers and maybe peers) about what we want to buy, will buy, have got, are doing... and allowing expression of different personae so we are treated the way we want to be. It'll take ten years to really change buying; it'll take 50 years to really change government.