I found this Presentation on the website Presentation Zen. Ok... it is 18 minutes long... so you are most likely not going to watch the whole thing... though you should... but at least check out the first 2 minutes.
He starts off by talking about how the "talking machine" showed up in the early 1900's created quite a stir in its day.
"In 1906 [John Sousa] traveled to [the United Stated capital], to talk about [a] technology that he called 'the talking machines.' Sousa was not a fan of the talking machines (phonographs). This is what he had to say 'these talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy... in front of every house in the summer evenings you would find young people together singing the songs of the day, or the old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal chord left,' Sousa said, 'the vocal chords will be elinated by a process of evolution, as was the tale of man when he came from the ape.' ... This is a picture of culture. We could descrivbe it... as a Read/Write culture. Its a culture where people particpate in the creation and the re-creation of their culture, and in that sense its read-write.
Sousa's fear was that we would lose that capacity because of these 'infernal machines.' And in its place we would have the opposite of read-write culture, what we could call a read-only culture.
A culture where creativity is consumed but the consumer is not a creator. A culture which is top-down, owned. Where the vocal chords of the millions have been lost.
Now as you look back at the 20th century, at least in what we think of as the 'developed world,' [it is hard] not to conclude that Sousa was right.
Never before in the history of Human culture had it been as professionalized... never before as concentrated... never before has the creativity of the millions been as effectively displaced, (by these infernal machines).
I think it is clear that he is right. The culture masses have forfeited their right to be creative and original for the right to be massively and passively entertained.
I think this same principal explains so much of what the Christian Church is going through in this country right now. After decade of professionalization, we are realizing that its just better when it is organic, real, and user generated than when it is professional, organized, and slick.
Where have you experienced this? What does it make you think about?
