Going Golem

"Going Golem" was the title I gave to this op-ed, which was published on June 14th in the Jewish Standard under the title, Going Golem… Or Moving the Letters Around. Can you remember back that far, when the Game of Thrones series had just wrapped up in a dissatisfying manner?

In any event, here it is now here on Blog Time Passing:

The recent controversy over the final season of the HBO series Game of Thrones brings to mind the essay by Michael Weingrad published in the Spring 2010 issue of the Jewish Review of Books: “Why There is No Jewish Narnia.” 

Weingrad poses that question, noting that fantasy literature represents “an entire literary genre—perhaps the only such genre—in which Jewish practitioners are strikingly rare.” He goes on to note that he “cannot think of a single major fantasy writer who is Jewish, and there are only a handful of minor ones of any note. To no other field of modern literature have Jews contributed so little.” 

Weingard speculates on the reasons for our lack of representation in this area, which include our historical memory. While Christians retain a romantic image of the medieval period as a time of knights in shining armor following a code of chivalry, Jews were shut out from this aristocratic system and often victimized by Crusaders claiming to be on a mission from God. For our people, modernity represented the moment of emancipation and acceptance as citizens in newly formed republics, with progress in politics following progress in science and technology. No accident, then, that there have been a great many Jewish science-fiction writers, not the least of them Isaac Asimov, the most prolific writer in any genre in American history.

While the question of whether there ever will be a Jewish Chronicles of Narnia or Game of Thrones remains to be seen—I imagine that someday there will be—for now I do want to point to one Jewish legend that has enormous fantasy potential—the golem.

There are many variations of the legend. The gist of it is a story about a human being creating an artificial being. A golem’s body typically is made out of clay, following the description in the Book of Genesis of God creating Adam’s body out of clay. In the story of Creation, God breathes life into Adam’s body. In Hebrew, the words denoting breath and wind also mean spirit and soul; breath is intimately associated with life itself, and also with speech.

A golem typically is brought to life not by breath or speech, but by the written word—it may be a series of letters in the Hebrew alphabet or God’s name inserted into the body. Letters also are used to spell out the Hebrew word for truth, emet. Usually they’re on the golem’s forehead. The golem can be deactivated by erasing the first letter, the aleph, leaving the Hebrew word met, meaning death. This reflects the idea of the Hebrew alphabet as sacred, and certain inscriptions as holy, for example, the Torah and mezuzahs.

A golem is not human. In some versions it cannot speak—speech is the defining characteristic of our species—while in others eventually it turns on its creator, sometimes because it follows instructions too literally. The story of the golem, then, often is a story of hubris, of human beings trying to play God, of trying to harness power that is beyond our control. It often is a story of unintended effects.

The best known version of the story takes place in the city of Prague during a time of oppression and pogroms. The golem there is brought to life by Rabbi Judah Loew to protect the Jewish community. We can understand the wish fulfillment fantasy behind this variation. Der Goylem by H. Leivick, a Yiddish dramatic poem and play, identifies Rabbi Loew’s golem with the legend of the Messiah ben Joseph, the messiah from the House of Joseph, who will precede the messiah from the House of David, and sometimes is associated with conflict and war.

The legend of the golem in all probability influenced Mary Shelley in the creation of what often is considered to be the first science-fiction novel, Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus. Prague, after all, is not too far from the setting of Shelley’s story, Geneva, and the Czech connection undoubtedly influenced Karel Čapek in the writing of the play R.U.R. The initials stand for Rossumovi Univerzáln’ Roboti, translated as Rossum’s Universal Robots. This play introduced the term robot, which is a Czech word for worker, and the narrative follows the classic trajectory of a slave rebellion, with our own creations turning against us.

The golem narrative is even more resonant today, given the cutting edge of contemporary technology. On the one hand, there has been a great deal of attention paid to the development and implementation of artificial intelligence, from self-driving cars to facial recognition and surveillance to the easy generation of fake videos that appear to be utterly authentic. It’s not just about killer robots, terminators, and homicidal HAL; Google searches and Amazon recommendations also are types of AI. All these applications are brought to artificial life by a form of writing—this time not a holy word or name or sacred letters, but the zeroes and ones of computer code, which again follow instructions to the letter, entirely literally.

And when it comes to the question of emet or truth, our social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so on come to mind as mechanisms that are so very effective at disseminating falsehoods, making them forms of computer code that have turned a blessing into a curse.

On the other hand, we have unlocked the code of life, DNA, and gained the ability to edit our own genes. Just recently it was revealed that a Chinese scientist engaged in gene editing to create “CRISPR babies” resistant to HIV infection had inadvertently shortened those children’s likely lifespans. DNA is in a sense the sacred script inside our bodies that animates us, and the question of whether clones have souls also could be framed as whether clones are golems. But with gene editing, we are in the process of turning our children and so ultimately ourselves into modern golems.

Admittedly, all this better fits in with science fiction than the fantasy genre, but my point is that a fantasy story featuring the concept of the golem is one that would have great relevance for the present day, just as Tolkien’s war of the ring appealed to post-World War II readers, and Game of Thrones, with its cynical view of conniving characters and political machinations, turned out to be the perfect narrative for the McConnell, Ryan, and Trump era.

Whether the golem legend can serve as the basis of the kind of grand fantasy that Tolkien or Lewis created, or even the more mediocre version written by George R.R. Martin, will depend on the inspiration and imagination of Jewish writers.

But I would suggest that the story, like the golem itself, has a life of its own, and sooner or later it just may write itself.

What is 'Medium' & Why is It the Message?

Back in April, I posted one of the outcomes of my visit to Saint Mary's College of California in March of last year: If Not A Then E (Studio Version), featuring a video that was produced there based on my PowerPoint presentation, with my recorded voiceover.

So, as part of my visit, which by the way was as a Roy E. and Patricia Disney Forum Fellow, I also delivered a public lecture, entitled "What We Mean By 'Medium' (And Why it is the Message)". It's similar to talks I've given before, and after, but the addition of PowerPoint makes a bit a different than some. And of course, there's also the introduction given by my good friend and fellow media ecologist, Ed Tywoniak, Professor of Communication at Saint Mary's. And a Q&A that followed, those are always unique forms of improvisation.

So anyway, for whatever it may be worth, here's the recording of my address, recorded in beautiful Moraga, California, on March 14th of 2017.





We also did an interview while I was out there, and maybe I'll share that as well in a future post. Maybe. We'll just have to see... 

The Prophet Einstein

So, it's about time I shared my op-ed which was published on March 9th in the Jewish Standard. This was one I had in mind to do for a long time now, and finally got around to do it. Significantly, and appropriately, it finally turned out that the timing was right. The title it was published under was, Seven Reasons Why Albert Einstein is a Prophet, and as you may recall, I have been willing to include Einstein within the field of media ecology, which is to say as a media ecologist, notably in my book Echoes and Reflections: On Media Ecology as a Field of Study.

Of course, that's a minor point here, my argument being more theological and philosophical. For what it's worth, here it is:



The number 139 is not one we are likely to pay attention to, so this anniversary may not get a great deal of attention. We tend to sit up and take notice when the anniversary is a multiple of 100, or 50, or 10, or even 5.


At the very least, we have a psychological bent toward even numbers, and 139 is decidedly odd. But if Einstein were still with us, he might point out that 139 is more than odd; that it is, in fact, a prime number, which makes it quite significant in its own right. He also no doubt would point to the arbitrary nature of anniversaries, and of calendars for that matter. Einstein’s date of birth on the Hebrew calendar was the 19th of Adar in the year 5639. This year, Adar 19 corresponded to March 6, last year it was March 17, next year is a leap year so it will be February 24 for Adar 1, and March 26 for Adar 2.

I suspect that the differences between the solar calendar of secular society and the lunar calendar of Jewish tradition had some influence on Einstein’s thinking. After all, when we say, for example, that Chanukah is coming late in a given year, it is just as true to say that Christmas and New Year’s are early. The experience of living with two so very different calendars could not help but point to the relativity of time.

And as we remember Einstein, we do so, along with the rest of the world, for his contributions to science, as the recipient of the 1921 Nobel Prize in physics, and the person named in 1999 as Time magazine’s Person of the Century. More than anyone else, Einstein was the person responsible for the paradigm shift in science that replaced Newton’s mechanistic view of the universe with a relativistic understanding of space and time.

And we also remember him as an especially noteworthy member of the Jewish people, one of our many gifts to the world, a prime example of what we sometimes refer to as yiddishe kop, intelligence born out of a tradition of literacy and learning, one in which teachers and sages are seen as heroic. And we may also recall that as a Jew, Einstein was forced to flee Nazi Germany as a refugee, and that he was a supporter of the Zionist movement and the State of Israel.


 

We do not remember Einstein in a religious context, however; he was not a rabbi or talmudic scholar or theologian. I want to suggest, however, that we should remember him as a prophet. Admittedly, in our tradition we consider the age of the prophets to have ended long ago, but we cannot rule out the possibility of modern prophets altogether. And while we would tend to be suspicious of anyone claiming to be a prophet today, Einstein never made any such claim, so he cannot be rejected as a false prophet.

But I do think a case can be made, and I hope you will consider the possibility as I put forth seven reasons for naming Albert Einstein as a modern-day prophet.

1. Einstein’s name has become synonymous with genius. We typically say that a given individual “is” a genius, but everyone who truly fits the description will more accurately refer to “a stroke of genius” in the sense of something coming from outside of themselves. The word “genius” originates from ancient Rome, and refers to a guiding spirit or deity, a supernatural source, like a guardian angel. (Prophets are the recipients of divine revelation, some form of communication, or we may call it inspiration, which literally means, “to breathe into,” which is how God brings Adam to life in the Book of Genesis.)

2. As a teenager, Einstein imagined himself chasing after a beam of light, which led to his understanding that light cannot be slowed or stopped, that the speed of light is constant, and that it is time, instead, that must vary. This thought experiment was the foundation that led to his special theory of relativity. Other thought experiments followed, notably the difference in what we  would observe when standing on a train vs. standing on a platform as bolts of lightning strike the train. (Prophets are known to receive revelation via visions, as in Jacob’s ladder, Joseph’s dreams, the chariot of fire that appeared to Elijah, and Ezekiel’s wheel within a wheel.)

 


3. One of Einstein’s most significant achievements was determining the nature of light as consisting of quanta, aka photons, and that light has a dual nature, as both waves and particles. Clearly, he had a unique relationship to the phenomenon of light. (Prophets are closely associated with light and enlightenment, Genesis famously says that light was the first of God’s creations, Moses has a halo when he descends from Mount Sinai after speaking to God face-to- face, a direct encounter with the divine countenance that we pray may shine upon us.)

4. Einstein gave us a new way of understanding the universe, of space and time as a single phenomenon, spacetime. (Prophets teach us about the nature of Creation to better understand the Creator, and our place in the world.)

 

5. Einstein invoked the philosophy of the Enlightenment founder Baruch Spinoza in explaining his own view of a pantheistic God. That is a view that traditionally has been seen as heretical, but is consistent with some approaches to Kabbalah, God as the Ein Sof, and certainly is acceptable within Reform Judaism. Above all, it is a view consistent with science; as Einstein famously remarked, “science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” His resistance to the uncertainty principle of quantum theory was famously expressed in the quote, “God does not play dice with the universe,” asserts that Creation is governed by laws that are rational and ultimately discernible, as well as based on an underlying monotheism, as God would have no one to play dice with. (Prophets often have been critics of established religious authority, in favor of a direct encounter with God via nature.)

6. Einstein spoke out for social justice. He did so on behalf of his own people, in opposition to Nazi Germany, and in favor of Zionism and the State of Israel, but also as a strong critic of racism and supporter of the civil rights movement in the United States. He also was quite critical of capitalism, arguing on behalf of socialism and advocating for a democratic world government and pacifism after the conclusion of World War II. (Social justice is one of the primary themes of the Prophets section of the Tanach.)




 
 

7. Einstein warned President Roosevelt of the danger of Nazi research into the development of the atomic bomb, leading to the Manhattan Project. He later became an outspoken critic of nuclear weapons. His warnings largely have fallen on deaf ears, at least as far as governments are concerned. In 1947, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists introduced the image of the Doomsday Clock, setting it to seven minutes before midnight. On January 25 of this year, the minute hand was moved up to two minutes before midnight, the closest it has ever been, mainly because of North Korea and our president’s threatening remarks, and not taking into account Putin’s recent statements about Russian nuclear missile capability, and his animated image of the bombardment of Florida. (The biblical prophets issued warnings about the destruction of Israel and Judea, and the name Jeremiah has become synonymous with pronouncements of doom.)




 

Einstein’s predictions in the realm of physics continue to be supported by astronomical observation and experimental evidence. Perhaps his predictions about society and politics ought to be taken seriously as well?

Why bother arguing for Einstein as a prophet?

• Because American culture always has had a strain of anti-intellectualism, one that includes resistance to many aspects of science, notably Darwinian evolution.

• Because climate change is at least as great a threat as nuclear war, and is being met with denial, dismissal, or disinterest from significant portions of the population, and all too many in leadership positions.

• Because facts and logic are under assault by religious fundamentalists, cynical political opportunists, and corporate executives with eyes only for short term profits.

As Rabbi Barry L. Schwartz makes clear in his recently published book, Paths of the Prophets: The Ethics-Driven Life, our prophetic tradition is of vital importance, one that always has and always will be relevant for us.

 
Naming Albert Einstein a prophet should not detract from this tradition, but rather enhance it, by adding a dimension that we need now more than ever: the truth that ethics cannot be divorced from an understanding of the world, of reality, in all its complexity, and glory.

Communication and Disruption

So, how about another post about one of our New York Society for General Semantics sessions from last year? Interested? Of course, you are!

This one is a little different from some of the others, as it involves one extended address, followed by a few shorter responses. And it features my colleague from Manhattan College and co-founder of the Media Ecology Association, as well as fellow trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, not to mention NYSGS board member, Thom Gencarelli.

I should also mention that Thom is a fellow past president of the New York State Communication Association, as well as the MEA, and this all starts with him being selected as a fellow Wilson  Fellow at NYSCA in 2016, which obligated him to deliver a Wilson Scholar Address at our last meeting, this past October. Which he did, and it was outstanding, which was why I asked him to give it again as part of a NYSGS program.

So, anyway, here's the write up for it:

Last year, Thom Gencarelli received NYSCA's John F. Wilson Fellow Award, based on his record of scholarship and service. Other scholars previously named as John F. Wilson Fellows include Neil Postman, Gary Gumpert, Dan Hahn, Deborah Borisoff, Susan Drucker, James W. Carey, Lance Strate, Susan B. Barnes, and Brian Cogan. In conjunction with his selection, he delivered this year's John F. Wilson Fellow Lecture on October 13th, at the 75th anniversary meeting of the New York State Communication Association:
"Dark Nets and Disruptive Practices"

All too often, people outside the academic discipline of communication and media studies consider what we do to be little more than a special interest, rather than the study of something that is central to, and one of the primary defining features of, the human experience. As a case in point, the Presidential election of 2016, the most disruptive event of all disruptive events in our contemporary experience in the U.S., can be explained from a media perspective, and an historical one at that. Beginning from Gutenberg’s invention of the mechanical, movable-type printing press and through our contemporary innovations in mobility, social media, and Tor, this presentation argues that all inventions and innovations in media are a disruption, and that the evolution of media by which the citizenry in a democratic society inform themselves can explain, in full, exactly what happened to us in 2016.

On November 3rd, Professor Gencarelli reprised his Wilson Lecture as the main event of our NYSGS program, and following the lecture, as an added bonus, additional reflections, comments, and responses were delivered by

MJ Robinson, Professor of New Media and Journalism and Media Studies, Bernard N. Stern Professor of Humor, and Graduate Deputy Chair for the Media Studies MS program in the Department of Television and Radio at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York;

Michael Plugh, Professor of Communication at Manhattan College, Immediate Past President of the New York State Communication Association, and Internet Officer and Executive Board member of the Media Ecology Association;

and Lance Strate, Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, Past President of the New York State Communication Association, Editor of Explorations in Media Ecology and Executive Board member of the Media Ecology Association, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of General Semantics, and President of the New York Society for General Semantics.

Thom Gencarelli, Ph.D. (NYU, 1993) is Professor and the founding Chair of the Communication Department at Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York. He is a Past President of the New York State Communication Association, the Media Ecology Association, and New Jersey Communication Association (twice), and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of General Semantics. He researches and writes about media literacy/media education, media ecology, and popular media and culture with an emphasis on popular music. He is co-editor (with Brian Cogan) of Baby Boomers and Popular Culture: An Inquiry into America’s Most Powerful Generation (ABC-Clio/ Praeger, 2014), and is currently at work on a book about language acquisition and cognitive development. Thom is also a songwriter, musician, and music producer, and has released two album-length works with his ensemble bluerace, World is Ready and Beautiful Sky. The group’s third, as yet untitled effort is due out in 2018.

It was a program that most certainly shed light on our contemporary semantic environment!

A Call to Disarms

When it came time to write my latest op-ed for the Jewish Standard, I was preparing to write on another topic when the Las Vegas shooting occurred on the night of October 1st. After reading many other news articles and opinion pieces on the subject, I decided to add my voice to the chorus, albeit without much specific reference to this particular incident, because I want the arguments to be independent of any one event, to apply to all of the mass shootings that have occurred in the past, and will continue to occur in the future, until something is finally done about the gun culture in the United States.

I also wanted to get to the root of the problem, the reason why efforts at curbing gun violence are blocked time and time again, and that's the Second Amendment. I am far from the first to call for that Amendment to be abolished, but I do think it's time to stop acting as if the idea of a "right to bear arms" is somehow okay, normal, immune from any questioning or criticism.

If we were drawing up the Bill of Rights today, instead of the late 18th century, we would certainly include First Amendment protections, maybe even strengthen them, as well as the right to a trial by jury, and habeas corpus, and we might even add a right to privacy, which is absent from the original ten amendments. We would probably include amendments prohibiting discrimination based race, gender, religion, creed, etc., and protections regarding voting rights. But would we include anything like the Second Amendment? Would we list packing a gun as a basic human right?

Sure, there would be a vocal minority who would say yes, but I think most American citizens would agree that guns are no more deserving of special protection than automobiles. And that's the point. The abolition of the Second Amendment would clear the way to setting up licensing and restrictions on firearms in the same way that we do so for cars, and trucks, and ships, and airplanes.

And yes, of course, this cannot happen quickly. But nothing is happening anyway. Nothing. At all. So it's time to start playing a long game, and working for a constitutional amendment, one of the longest games in American politics. But it's worth it. It may seem insurmountable today, but if folks keep working at it steadily over time, it can be done. And then, even though we have to live with the omnipresent threat of gun violence, maybe our children, or maybe their children, won't have to.

So, anyway, here is my op-ed, originally published on Oct. 13th, entitled, A Call to Disarm:


Let me begin with a thought that might sound like heresy to some citizens of the United States: The Second Amendment to our Constitution is not scripture.

Indeed, neither the Bill of Rights nor the US Constitution itself were handed down to us by God. Nor are they said to have been dictated from on high, or be the product of divine inspiration. Rather, they are the product of human beings, subject to human flaws and human error. And they are a product of a particular time and set of circumstances, some of which are no longer in effect, such as slavery, and some of which have changed radically, such as the likelihood of a solider being quartered in a private home, an infringement that is the subject of the Third Amendment.

The founders of our republic clearly were aware of their own limitations by including Article Five of our Constitution, which allows for the possibility of amending our governmental framework, and lists the procedures to be followed in order to propose and ratify a constitutional amendment.

Famously, new amendments have abolished slavery, granted voting rights to women, and lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. Infamously, the 18th Amendment prohibited the manufacture, importing, transportation, and sale of alcohol in the United States. Thirteen years after it was established, this amendment was repealed by the 21st Amendment, ending the period characterized by crime and violence known as Prohibition.

We the people can amend the US Constitution, and we can amend our amendments. In theory, we can amend our amendments to our amendments, and so on ad infinitum, but the important point is that amendments can be repealed. And I want to join the chorus of sane and concerned voices calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment.

Bret Stephens, in a recent New York Times op-ed arguing for repeal, concluded with the following: “The true foundation of American exceptionalism should be our capacity for moral and constitutional renewal, not our instinct for self-destruction” ("Repeal the Second Amendment").

Everybody knows that the Second Amendment is written in a torturous manner that makes it impossible to determine its precise meaning: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Historians tell us that the first clause is the main point, to guarantee the right of individual states to maintain their own armed forces, as a matter of collective defense. In part, the motivation had much to do with skepticism about maintaining a standing army on the federal level. The idea that the Second Amendment refers to individual rights is a later interpretation, with its roots in the aftermath of the Civil War, and largely a 20th century innovation.

The Second Amendment is not scripture, and therefore should not have to undergo talmudic exegesis, just so that it can serve as a pretext for preventing any and all regulation of firearms. The initials NRA do not stand for the National Rabbinic Association, so that organization does not have the moral or intellectual authority to dictate its interpretation of the amendment to the American citizenry.

And what about scripture itself? Of course, there were no firearms in the ancient world, but there are references to other weapons. Look at the famous words of the prophet Isaiah: “and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks,” in reference to warfare; in another Jewish context, the Christian Bible’s Gospel of Matthew has Jesus admonish one of his followers by saying: “all who take up the sword, will die by the sword.”

Of course, we would expect to find messages of nonviolence dominating the sacred texts of our nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage. And we might well wonder how it is that so many people of faith in our country can resist any efforts to reduce gun violence so zealously. In another New York Times op-ed, David Brooks argues that “guns are a proxy for larger issues,” for “a much larger conflict over values and identity” ("Guns and the Soul of America").

In other words, it’s the culture war, stupid.

And let us make no mistake about it. Resistance to gun safety legislation is linked to the populist movement that gave us the Trump presidency, it is linked to the alt-right, to white supremacy and neo-Nazi movements, to anti-immigration sentiment, to Islamophobia, racism, and anti-Semitism. It should be pretty clear which side we ought to be on.

If there is a passage in scripture that might be the ancient equivalent of the Second Amendment, it might be found in the Holiness Code in the Book of Leviticus, in the commandment “You shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.” This suggests a right to self-defense that might translate to a right to bear arms. But it also implies a collective right to be safe and secure, the right implied by the prophet Micah, and alluded to by George Washington in his letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, that “they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid.”

Psalm 115 incorporates a polemic against idol worship, characterized as “the work of men’s hands,” concluding that “they that make them shall be like unto them, yea, everyone who trusts in them.” If people treat the Second Amendment as scripture, are they not in effect worshiping firearms as their idols? And consequently, doesn’t that transform them into instruments of violence, molded into the image of their molten gods, tools of their own invention?

This summer I published a book called Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition. One of my central arguments in that book is that our tools and technologies are never neutral, that they have inherent characteristics and tendencies that influence how they are used. Just as objects tend to roll down rather than up a hill, and stones are hard not soft, so guns are inherently designed as instruments of violence. This is a tendency, not an absolute. In some instances, the presence of guns may deter violence, it is true, but on the whole, the more guns in a situation, the greater the potential for violence, and the greater the frequency and harm of violent events.

⏣ ⏣ ⏣ ⏣ ⏣ ⏣ ⏣ ⏣ ⏣ ⏣ ⏣ ⏣ ⏣ ⏣

You may notice that I have made no reference to the specifics of the most recent mass shooting, and that is because the details do not matter. As of this writing, journalists covering the story are obsessed with the question of why it happened. In this instance, that question is proving to be harder to answer than usual. But in my view, the why is irrelevant. The why will always be different, individual, personal. Taking a media ecology approach, what matters is not why, but how. And the how remains consistent across the 131 mass shootings that have occurred over the past 50 years.

It’s the guns, stupid. It’s the firearms.

The answer to why often is some form of insanity, as if there were ever a sane reason to commit mass murder. But allowing for that, the same side of the culture war that defends the Second Amendment also opposes funding for research into the causes of gun violence, and funding for mental health in general, and funding for universal health care, which would aid the victims of gun violence. There is no moral equivalence between the two sides.

And while one side argues for the Second Amendment in absolute or near absolute terms, the other asks, you might say begs, for modest modifications that might not make more than a modicum of difference. Is there any wonder that the outcome is more of the same, over and over again?

It is time for a new abolition movement, one dedicated to the repeal of the Second Amendment, because that in turn would open the door to substantial Federal gun safety legislation. This is not a call for a prohibition on firearms, but rather to open the door for reasonable safety measures, so that we all can sit under our vines and fig trees, in our concert halls and movie theaters and night clubs and malls, and in baseball fields and schools and houses of worship, and in our streets and homes, and none shall make us afraid ever again.

A Noteworthy Nugget

It's a small item, but certainly blogworthy here on my official blog of record: This past summer, my new book, Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition, was included in an online Fordham News piece entitled New and Noteworthy from Fordham Faculty, featuring six new books.

The byline goes to Janet Sassi, and the item is dated August 9, 2017, with my book in the lead position. A picture of the book cover is included, and if you've read my previous posts, you know that I really love that cover, so let's include it here as well: 

And let's follow with the short piece, based in part on a brief phone interview with me: 

Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition, by Lance Strate, Ph.D. (Peter Lang, 2017)

In his new book, Strate, professor of communication and media studies, examines how smartphones, apps, and social media shape us as human beings. He expands on an intellectual tradition, one spearheaded by Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan (who taught at Fordham), that’s about much more than understanding any one particular medium.

“It starts with the understanding that those things we pay attention to, like screens, are not just gadgets,” he said. “We think we can turn them on or off, but when you look at them as part of our environment, we can’t escape them.”

Even people who don’t use social media will be inadvertently affected by it, said Strate, because its use is ubiquitous—much the same as persons who don’t fly and yet must contend with planes continuously flying overhead. “We are living in an environment that is full of these mediations that influence us.”

“We all speak with a language we didn’t create. That influences how we express ourselves and in how we think,” he said.

Oh, and by the way, before the six quick takes, this new and noteworthy item included a picture of four of us, which is also worth sharing here: 

Maybe not my best angle, but we pull no punches here at Blog Time Passing! And don't worry, this won't be the last you hear about my book... 

Media Ecology: Some Details Regarding My New Book

So, if you know me personally, or connect to me via Twitter, Facebook, or the Media Ecology Association's discussion list, this may not be news to you, but it's time to make the announcement here on Blog Time Passing, my official blog of record. And even if you have already got the message, I'll add some extra details that may make it worthwhile sticking around.

So here goes, drum roll and trumpets please: My new book, Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition (New York: Peter Lang, 2017) is now in print and available for sale through Amazon and many other fine booksellers. Hurray!!!

🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺🔺🔻🔺🔻🔻🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺🔻

And here's the publisher's write-up of the book, a bit of promotional hyperbole there, but still it will give you an idea of what it's about, in case that's not entirely clear:

Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition provides a long-awaited and much anticipated introduction to media ecology, a field of inquiry defined as the study of media as environments. Lance Strate presents a clear and concise explanation of an intellectual tradition concerned with much more than understanding media, but rather with understanding the conditions that shape us as human beings, drive human history, and determine the prospects for our survival as a species.

Much more than a summary, this book represents a new synthesis that moves the field forward in a manner that is both unique and unprecedented, and simultaneously grounded in an unparalleled grasp of media ecology's intellectual foundations and its relation to other disciplines. Taking as its subject matter "life, the universe, and everything," Strate describes the field as interdisciplinary and communication-centered, provides a detailed explication of McLuhan's famous aphorism, "the medium is the message," and explains that the human condition can only be understood in the context of our biophysical, technological, and symbolic environments.

Strate provides an in-depth examination of media ecology's four key terms: medium, which is defined in much broader terms than in other fields; bias, which refers to tendencies inherent in materials and methods; effects, which are best understood via the Aristotelian notion of formal causality and contemporary systems theory; and environment, which includes the distinctions between the oral, chirographic, typographic, and electronic media environments. A chapter on tools serves as a guide to further media ecological research and scholarship. This book is well suited for graduate and undergraduate courses on communication theory and philosophy.

And you gotta have blurbs, so here are mine (and I really do appreciate them, thank you Julie, Paul, and Josh!):

With characteristic passion and soulfulness, Lance Strate embarks on a metatask: to synthesize thinking about ‘life, the universe and everything’ through the lens of media ecology. In the process, he locates media ecology as the dynamic shift between figure and ground and as the basis for ‘understanding the human condition.’ Writing with an almost disarming ease that belies the complexity of the ideas he communicates, Strate brilliantly and reflexively mediates media ecology itself, bringing clarity to the Kekulé-like conundrums of an immense and increasingly relevant field. Anyone who thoughtfully enters and engages the environment of Strate’s book will be rewarded with moments of profound clarity, connecting ideas typically viewed as disparate or oppositional into patterns of deep understanding about media ecology―and about the process of living.―Julianne H. Newton, Professor of Visual Communication, University of Oregon 

Lance Strate’s synthetic thinking in Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition opens up media ecology, allowing the reader to see how, as a field of inquiry, it applies to everything from language, media, and philosophy to our very understanding of what it means to be human living in a dynamic environment. Along the way Strate shows how media ecology connects with all the major approaches to communication study.―Paul Soukup, Professor and Chair, Department of Communication, Santa Clara University

Lance Strate asks big questions―and provides a myriad of perceptive answers. This book is at once playful, poetic, and precise. The clear writing about complex ideas is a pleasure to read and offers many gifts of understanding.―Joshua Meyrowitz, University of New Hampshire

And let me tell you about the cover. The publisher asked if I had  any instructions for the graphics designer, and I did have some ideas. One was the color, violet, like the color of the cover of Hannah Arendt's most influential philosophical work, The Human Condition:

🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺🔻🔺🔻   

While the color isn't exactly the same, it does evoke Arendt's work, and her understanding of the human condition serves as a foundation for my own media ecological discussion of the conditions of human life, which is another way of saying the environments that shape and are shaped by our species. 

As an added bonus, violet also has a connection to New York University, home of the original, late lamented Media Ecology Program founded by Neil Postman and Terry Moran, who were soon joined by Christine Nystrom. While NYU's colors are purple and white, their athletic teams are called the Violets, and according to the Wikipedia entry on the NYU Violets, 

For more than a century, NYU athletes have worn violet and white colors in competition, which is the root of the nickname Violets. In the 1980s, after briefly using a student dressed as a violet for a mascot, the school instead adopted the bobcat as its mascot, from the abbreviation then being used by NYU's Bobst Library computerized catalog.

Additionally, for a period of time, I would join Postman, Nystrom, and others for lunch or a snack at an NYU eatery called The Violet. But I should also note that the way the colors turned out in different shades, the cover also offers a hint of Fordham University's school colors, maroon and white. Again, however, my main goal was to pay homage to Hannah Arendt.

In addition to the color scheme, the use of the three internally tangential circles follows one of the main diagrams included in the book, one depicting the three basic human conditions or media environments (the biophysical as the outer ring, the technological inside of it, and the symbolic as the inner ring; I used internally tangential circles rather than concentric circles because I wanted a point of intersection between the three, rather than having the symbolic fully cut off and separated from the biophysical by being surrounded by the technological, because there is direct interaction between the biophysical and the symbolic).

The way the three circles are arranged is also meant to evoke another book cover, one of the many editions of Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, the most commonly cited work in the field of media ecology, and in many ways the work most central to it. The edition in question was one of the old pocketbook-sized paperback editions, with an image of a light bulb done up in Christmas-like colors:

I should note at this juncture that the original title I had in mind for this book was Understanding Media Ecology, and that goes back some two decades. But when I agreed to launch a new media ecology book series with the publisher Peter Lang,  they wanted a name for the series that would distinguish it from the Media Ecology series I had with Hampton Press, and I tossed out a few possibilities including Understanding Media Ecology, and that was the one they wanted to go with. So this book is, in fact, Volume 1 of Peter Lang's Understanding Media Ecology book series (this despite the fact that several books were published in the series prior to mine, a decision I had nothing to do with I hasten to add).

So I gave up my direct allusion to McLuhan's main work, and decided to go with a simpler and more direct title, Media Ecology. As for the subtitle, I use approach because it avoids the visual metaphor of perspective or even theory, as McLuhan and other media ecologists have been critical of the visualism of western culture, favoring acoustic metaphors instead; I also used this term because I wanted to place a certain degree of emphasis on media ecology as a method or way of understanding, a path, or tao if you like, and not just a field or intellectual tradition or set of theories. 

I did retrieve understanding in the subtitle to retain a connection to Understanding Media. And I had it read, An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition, to indicate the connection to Arendt, but also and perhaps more importantly to emphasize the fact that media ecology is about much more than media as the term is commonly understood. Indeed, media ecology is very much about the human condition, about the conditions that we exist within, that influence us, and are in turn influenced by us. Or to invoke Douglas Adams, as I do in the book, it's about life, the universe, and everything.

But back to what I was saying about the graphic design: I also suggested having the circles take up all or most of the front cover, and given their relative lengths, having my name in the innermost and smallest circle, having the book title in the middle circle, and having the rather longish subtitle in the outermost and largest circle. So, that was my input, and I am very, very pleased with the way it turned out. It's rather striking, don't you think?

Now, maybe you'd like to know a little more about the book before going ahead and buying it? To which, I respond, what's the matter, don't you trust me? But sure, I understand, so let's start with the book's own listings:

Does that help a bit? Maybe a little, but I bet a more detailed listing of the contents would be even better. I actually wanted to include a Table of Contents that included the breakdown by sections within each chapter, which I decided to number, following the example of Lewis Mumford in many of his books, but the publisher just went with the one I showed you above. (I have also incorporated the List of Illustrations here, which does appear in the book, and which are numbered according to their requirements, based on chapter number and order within the chapter.) What follows does not include the page numbers, since it was produced with the manuscript, before it went into page layout, but I think it will help provide more of a sense of what's in the book:

Contents

Illustrations

Figure 4.1 The Three Human Conditions/Media Environments
Figure 7.1 A Model of Communication Based on Formal Cause
Figure 8.1 The Ziggurat Model of the Oral Media Environment
Figure 8.2 The Ziggurat Model of the Chirographic Media Environment
Figure 8.3 The Ziggurat Model of the Typographic Media Environment
Figure 8.4 The Ziggurat Model of the Electronic Media Environment
Figure 8.5 The Alternate Ziggurat Model of the Electronic Media Environment
Figure 9.1 Pathways for Media Ecology Scholarship

Preface
 1: A First Word

Chapter 1   An Introduction
 1: Life, the Universe, and Everything
 2: Defining Media Ecology
 3: The Study and the Object of Study
 4: Field of Inquiry, Field of Study

Chapter 2   Intersections
 1: The Field of Communication
 2: Grammar, Linguistics, Semiotics, Aesthetics, Etc.
 3: General Semantics
 4: Information, Cybernetics, and Systems
 5: Media and Society
 6: Medium Theory
 7: Media Studies and Cultural Studies
 8: Human Ecology
 9: Psychology and Biology
10: Science and Technology Studies
11: History and Historiography
12: Futurology
13: Media Education and Media Literacy
14: Philosophy and Theology
15: Formalism and Materialities
16: Humanism
17: Technological Determinism
18: Praxis and Activism

Chapter 3   Understanding Media Ecology
 1: What Is Media Ecology?
 2: The Medium is the Message

Chapter 4   The Human Condition
 1: The Human Medium
 2: Nature and Culture
 3: The Technological Condition
 4: The Symbolic World

Chapter 5   Medium
 1: Understanding Media
 2: Media and Medium (A Note on Usage)
 3: From Printing to Mass Communication
 4: Transportation and Transmission
 5: Mediated Communication, New Media, Social Media
 6: Substance and Sensation
 7: Words
 8. Form
 9: Human Bodies as Media
10: Relationship
11: Technology and Technique
12: Environment and Process
13: Summation

Chapter 6   Bias
 1: The Bias of Communication
 2: The Nature of Bias
 3: The Myth of Neutrality
 4: Design and Function
 5: The Bias of the Medium

Chapter 7    Effects
 1: An Effects Tradition
 2: Impact and Ecology
 3: Some Basics Regarding Science and the Limits of Knowledge
 4: Causality
 5: Formal Cause
 6: Systems and Emergence

Chapter 8   Environment
 1: Me and Not-Me
 2: Ecosystems and Networks
 3: Towards a Media Eco-Logic
 4: Media Environments

Chapter 9   Tools
 1: Context Analysis
 2: Studying Media as Media
 3: Studying the Biases of a Medium
 4: Studying Effects
 5: Studying Environments

Chapter 10   Conclusion
 1: A Last Word

Index

And while I didn't get my author's copies of the book until later, according to Amazon, the book was officially published on the Fourth of July. So I guess you could say it represents an Independence Day of sorts, maybe in some ways for media ecology, certainly for me. What I mean is that, over the years, I have encounter many misunderstandings about media ecology, as well as a number of objections to various aspects of our field, and the book incorporates my responses to those misunderstandings and objections, and hopefully answers them in a way that might put them to rest (probably not, given that it's hard to change people's minds, even in the face of rational argument and evidence, but hope springs eternal). So, along with being a summary and new synthesis intended to move the field forward, it should also serve as a defense against the dark arts that have been aligned against media ecology over the years.

I do feel a certain sense of obligation to my mentors, Neil Postman and Christine Nystrom, and especially to Chris who tried her best to present media ecology as a coherent and organized field, rather than simply a series of probes and percepts. And in that sense, this was a book that I needed to write. I kinda had the feeling that if I died before this book was completed, my shade would not be able to rest easy. Which is also why the book is by no means all that it could be, because I had to limit what I would cover and the amount of time I would put into it, or the book would never have been finished (not to mention that I had word count limits imposed by the publisher, which I significantly exceeded). But with this book, I do believe I have fulfilled the obligation that I felt to Chris and Neil (an obligation that they never placed on me I hasten to add), as well as to my colleagues, students, friend, and fellow travelers, to media ecologists present and future. Whew!