The disconnected air exhibited by Eisenstein’s account is not accidental. In her work, printing itself stands outside history. The press is something «sui generis,» we are told, lying beyond the reach of conventional historical analysis. Its «culture» is correspondingly placeless and timeless.
THE NATURE OF THE BOOK. Print and Knowledge in the making. ADRIAN JOHNS. THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS. CHICAGO AND LONDON.
That’s funny. It is like considering writing fiction totally out of any human activity unrelated to writing fiction. Fiction is everywhere. Perhaps in subtle ways like Gilded balls and ways to worship things that aren’t there; so the common person doesn’t notice they’re being told a story and they’re relinquishing —willingly — their agency to inquire[1].
It is also like trying to present football as an ever present sport. Or tattoos as an ever present way to differentiate ourselves from monkeys without speaking of the cultural acceptance depending on historical background.
Thus, why to make printing culture something placeless and timeless? What’s in there to gain? Is it related to the way in which reading is perceived nowadays as a freeing and intellect developer activity just by the action of reading as Mikita Brottman warns us about?
Have you ever wondered if you present printing culture as such and why? Pasto kalo.
[1] Maybe they only want to survive the collective experience of telling others they’re just believing something invented. Not many people take that kindly.
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