Friday, May 2, 2008

Books, Literacy, and Knowledge for All

I feel deeply that mankind has within us an inherent drive to move forward and progress.  i believe that we as individuals al want a better life for ourselves and our progeny.  however, our inherent drive must be fueled by information.  no human development happens in a vacuum.  we drive each other forward.  this is why the printing press had such a massive impact on the world.  knowledge is the power that drives us forward.  perhaps the thing that kept the dark ages dark was the tight funneling of knowledge through the establishment.  

once the cat came out of the bag there was no getting it back (i have tried to put an actual cat back into an actual bag from which it escaped, i know firsthand the meaning of this metaphor).  the reason why is as i discussed before.  the human drive forward.  fueled by proliferation of knowledge, the printing press catalyzed a chain reaction that has not stopped to this day.  humanism i believe (pardon me for expressing religion, but i feel reality cannot be discussed without it) is the expression of the Element of Deity given to us all at creation. therefore when given knowledge coupled with the ability to express and share knowledge we begin to seek progress.  this leads to the rethinking of the way we do things.  you Cannot Yield Excellence from the processes of Mediocrity.  when this transformation occurs even the most entrenched beliefs of man fall subject to further evaluation and likely reformation.  hence that once the printing press made possible the spread of literacy as the conveyor of knowledge the resurgence of Humanism, renaissance, and religious reformation were inevitable.

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