Taken as a social whole, the technology is young.
The written word has gone through millenia of social development; the printed word, about six centuries, the mass printed word, maybe three. The idea that computer screens can be a mass literary medium goes back maybe 25 years, a bit further back if one counts "visionaries." Its development has been led by computer programmers; but then, the craft of font development and the art of the printed page were led mainly by technicians, as well. I don't want to slam computer programmers here; one of the greatest, Donald Knuth, started a simple (hah!) project to make scientific and mathematical journals as aesthetically pleasing as their pre-electronic forms, and ended up creating a new computer language to handle it, reproducing the historical development of print in the process (as he has documented). That's just solving the relatively simple (hah!) problem of reproducing fonts and page layout for ultimate printing. Actually on a mass level* I find the development of this aspect of electronic literary production (electronic form to mass print form) to be extraordinary. But then, it involves the final destruction of a centuries-old craft guild, a destruction which was accelerated under capitalism, as one must of course expect, so its development follows the internal logic of capitalist production.
The development of exquisitely legible and readable computer screens? Not so clear. Right now, it looks like they are seen as consumer end products. This is actually not a good place to be. Propaganda aside, under capitalism the crucible of technological development is not in the creation of end consumer products, but goods that aid in production (including goods that aid in control of production). But make this kind of gizmo absolutely necessary for efficient sales or production control or whatever and watch the technology take off.
A third avenue, beyond technological developments toward improved investment capital goods or improved consumption goods--technical change as a result of explicit policy needs set by the state--is possible, but historically this has hardly existed outside of developments for war. But war needs have of course been very important (OK, an understatement) as an engine for technological development, so if someone decides nice readable computer screens are absolutely necessary for "defense," we may see incredibly rapid changes.
Capitalism is fucking good at technological change. Socially useful technological change? Only if it corresponds to the needs of capital. Sorry if this all led to me reiterating the obvious... but it's a hell of a system, isn't it?
*Although the Knuth example involves a relatively unimportant (to capital) niche market. Which is why Knuth was on his own.
On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 4:48 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> The other day, when I was trying to recall Harold Bloom's argument about why Yeats's "The Second Coming" is a reactionary poem, Michael Pollak helpfully scanned and posted the passage. I tried reading it and felt very frustrated - it was all passing me ...