I have the phrase “Those who WILL NOT read have NO Advantage over those who CAN NOT read” posted over my desk. I firmly believe that the crucial turning point from thousands of years of horse and buggy to a world of jet airplanes was the movable-type printing press invented by Gutenberg. It allowed for knowledge and ideas to be recorded, shared, and expanded upon. Clear and substantial communication was necessary for moving us forward technologically.

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I have been struck by some portrayals of the future, where civilization has reverted back to early, nontechnological status, and with it a simplified, corrupted language by the people (and generally no ability to read books). I believe books can expand thinking, and the lack of reading shrinks knowledge and thinking.

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Apparently I’m not the only one. Neal Gabler wrote a commentary titled “The Zuckerberg Revolution” wherein he explains how, if the founder of Facebook were to have his view of communication become “the norm,” then real communication will decrease, along with knowledge and thinking.

Do you think that this “communication 2.0” (via Facebook, Twitter, Instant Messenger, and so on) will lead to a better or deteriorated society?

Here are some quotes I found particularly meaningful:

* “Gutenberg’s Revolution transformed the world by broadening it, by proliferating ideas.”
* “[Neil] Postman … believed that a reading society was also a thinking society. No real reading, no real thought.”
* “Postman felt that print culture helped create thought that was rational, ordered and engaging, and he blamed TV for making us mindless.”
* “Zuckerberg introduced seven principles that he said were the basis of communication 2.0. Messages have to be seamless, informal, immediate, personal, simple, minimal and short.”
* “That makes Zuckerberg the anti-Gutenberg…[creating a world] in which complexity is all but impossible and meaninglessness reigns supreme.”
* “Zuckerberg’s Revolution has a corollary that one might call Zuckerberg’s Law: Empty communications drive out significant ones.”
* “Gutenberg’s Revolution left us with a world that was intellectually rich. Zuckerberg’s portends one that is all thumbs and no brains.”

Though not entirely relevant, the horse and buggy survived Gutenberg by four centuries or so. Not to denigrate the importance of printing technology — it was one among many crucial innovations, but you also need to give credit to, for example, Newton and Liebnitz for inventing calculus.

For that matter, the notion of providing reading material to the masses was quite controversial when it was introduced. The Catholic Church at the time figured independent thinking wasn’t a very good idea and would bring about all sorts of unspeakable horrors. The Church, in fact, forbade Catholics from owning a copy of the Bible for that very reason: They might reach different and, by definition, erroneous conclusions regarding its meaning.

From the Church’s perspective, the concern was right on the money. Not that long after Bibles were in wider distribution, lots of Christians did reach different conclusions — so we can all thank Gutenberg for the joy of sects. (Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Remember to tip your waitresses.)

In any event, every couple of years, another innovation promises to bring on the end of the world. Heck, every couple of years video games alone will be up to the challenge again.

So let’s create two verbs: to Gutenberg and to Zuckerberg. When you Gutenberg, you communicate about a subject in depth. When you Zuckerberg, you communicate only the highlights in a few well-chosen bullet points.

If all of us did nothing but Zuckerberg, I’d agree with you. As is so often the case, a better perspective requires a balance.

Consider that by the 1870s (or so I’ve read) more had been written just about the field of mathematics than a single human being could read in a lifetime. There’s so much to know out there that nobody can comprehend more than an infinitesimal fraction of it.

Which brings me (at last!) to my point: Anyone who is only willing to Gutenberg will be the proverbial specialist who knows everything about nothing. Most of the world would be invisible to a person like that. Anyone who is only willing to Zuckerberg will live in a bumper-sticker/Twitterized world of broad awareness but shallow comprehension.

It seems most of us need to Zuckerberg about most subjects, while Gutenberging when we have the need, time, and inclination.