The Dissemination of Information in the Renaissance and its Effects

The Renaissance marks a period in time when a major shift occurred in the way humans think. Before then, human thought was much more concerned with outside factors such as religion and tradition rather than individual and self-conscious thought. As this shift occurred, humans started to focus more inward where every individual was capable of conscious thought outside of cultural practices. Part of this change was caused by the invention of mechanized print, and the dissemination of knowledge that followed the invention of mechanized print. Furthermore, this explosion of knowledge in the Renaissance has many similarities to the explosion of information in the current digital age. The systems of organization of information set forth by the scholars of the Renaissance created a precedent for the structure of the modern computer, and how the individual comprehended and synthesized its information.

To understand the effects of the movement of humanism in the Renaissance, it is important to know that this concept of the individual was not always accepted, and is in fact a construction of thought (Martin, 1997, p.1311). In the Middle Ages, the individual was not of central concern, and this was due to a veil “of faith, illusion, and childish prepossession (ibid).” There were major efforts in the Renaissance to redefine moral categories of sincerity and prudence to the formation of an increased sense of subjectivity and individualism (Martin, 1997, p.1313). Self fashioning became a central theme of exploration with an “increased self-consciousness about the fashioning of human identity as a manipulable, artful process (Martin, 1997, p.1314).”  Writers in the Renaissance began to distinguish between the representation of self and the “valuation of the interior self as the core of personal identity (Parker & Bentley, 2006, p.3).” Martin explains the concept of the individual born in the Renaissance as “a view of the self as a cultural artifact, a historical and ideological illusion generated by the economic, social, religious, and political upheavals of the Renaissance (1997, p. 1315).” In this way the birth of the concept of the individual came about.

The Renaissance and the Reformation gave birth to the modern individualist spirit which was central to the triumph of Western civilization (Parker & Bentley, 2006, p.2). This kind of enlightenment had many effects such as European expansion, long-distance trade and travel, missionary enterprise and cross-cultural encounter (ibid). European expansion, and furthermore global travel lead to the emergence of industrial capitalism (ibid). It changed the landscape of Europe and newly discovered lands into a “place of imagination and intellect rather than geography of curious beasts, people and plants (Rhodes & Sawday, 200, p.1).” This shift and expansion of Western European culture is an important factor through which the concept of the individual was popularized.

There was one technological advance in particular that marked the emergence of modernity in the Christian West, the Gutenberg Press; by 1500, over 280 european towns had some form of the printing press; books were being distributed in unprecedented numbers (Rhodes & Sawday, 200, p.1). Before the invention of the printing press, books were handcrafted and reserved for the elite. People had to search out and go to great lengths to access a book (Rhodes & Sawday, 200, p.2). The printing press transformed the book from a crafted object to a commodity, and allowed for the material, or the information, to be available to more than just the elite class (ibid).  Furthermore, the ability to reproduce books redefined the book as an intellectual tool rather than a devotional object or a symbol of status (Rhodes & Sawday, 200, p.3).

Printed books were a large factor in the movement of the individual in the Renaissance. Rhodes and Sawday posit that “the very multiplicity of printed books that rapidly schooled their readers in how to read. The reader had to learn how to participate in the construction of a text (2000,p.7).” It causes for the viewer to participate in the construction of the text and to read or understand it in ways the author may have not intended, coupling it with the ability to compare it to other texts or ideas (Rhodes & Sawday, 200, p.7). This process aligns with and helped progress the movement of the Individual or ‘humanism’ in the Renaissance where the individual human was able to interact with the book and draw their own conclusions.

Printed books were not only a factor in influencing the individual, but also informed organization of information, and acted as a precursor to the computer’s structure of data storage. Just like the book, computer based storage, and data manipulation began within large scale institutions as a preserve of the elite, then became cheap and available to the individual. Similarly, in the Renaissance, the book slowly came from the cathedrals and universities to the study of the humanist scholar (Rhodes & Sawday, 200, p.6) The technology developed by scribes in the twelfth century of large volumes of information being stored and organized mirrors our current climate of data organization in the digital age (ibid). Organization in the form of things such as indexes, and chapters allowed for more rapid searching, flipping backwards and forwards (ibid). Scholars in the late Renaissance worked to shape the mind into a reliable system for retrieval on any subject. This is a direct precursor to how data in our current age is sorted and how search engines are built. In fact, the computer comes tantalizing close to fulfilling the medieval dream of encyclopedic memory (Rhodes & Sawday, 200, p.18).

The mechanization of print, and the page also allowed for two more vital structures that directly contributed to how we understand the modern digital page. The printed page had a system of standardized spatial display with sections, subsections ,and paragraphs; this particular organization also helped to inform, and create a standard for the printed book, and therefore created a sort of grammar where certain typefaces, graphics or styles of organization acted as symbols for understanding and comprehension (Rhodes & Sawday, 200, p.7) Before this, because of the nature of the handcrafted scroll, there were many differences book to book so with the birth of the printing press, the generic page was born (ibid).

There is an indisputable similarity between the effect of the printing press and those of the computer where the volume of information available is unprecedented (Rhodes & Sawday, 200, p.11). As with any new form of media, the patterns of communication change (McLuhan, 1995, p.90). In both the invention of the printed book, and the computer database, there is an explosion of knowledge and communication (Rhodes & Sawday, 200, p.11). This explosion of knowledge in both periods “represent a paradoxical distillation of humanist despair and optimism”, where the scope of information available made the world more unknowable than ever, and yet there is belief in a system that will hold all information possible (Rhodes & Sawday, 200, p.12).  Print, or mechanized writing, created a separation and in turn an extension of human functions unimaginable even in Roman times, which is mirrored in the current digital age (McLuhan, 1995, p.101). The level of easily accessible information in both the Renaissance and the digital age is unprecedented.

With the written word, knowledge itself became the traffic and the need for advanced knowledge. As it spread out visually, and became more accessible, it was localized and divided into specialties (McLuhan, 1995, p.103). The written word and the dissemination of knowledge pushed forward the movement of the individual. Furthermore, the birth of a need for advanced knowledge in the Renaissance can be seen as a precursor to the explosion of knowledge and technology in the digital age.

The Renaissance marked an explosion of information and documentation to an extent that had never happened before, not until the current age. The mechanization of the written word helped to establish systems of organization that set out the pathway towards digital technology as we know it. This is also coupled with the spread and accessibility of knowledge that was made possible by mechanized printing. It gave the average human the power of individual and conscious thought.  The computer is an extension of the systems of organization set up by those in the Renaissance but much like the printed word, it has reached levels never seen before.

QUESTION

As information becomes more and more accessible, and humans continue to pursue the next
best technology, what sort of effects will the computer have on our culture and the way humans perceive the self?

McLuhan, M. (1995). Chapter 10. Roads and paper routes. From Understanding media: The extension of man. Cambridge, ME: MIT Press.

Martin, J. (1997). Inventing sincerity, refashioning prudence: The discovery of the individual in Renaissance Europe. American Historical Review, 102(5), 1309.
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Parker, C. H., & Bentley, J. H. (2006). Between the Middle Ages and Modernity : Individual and Community in the Early Modern World. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
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Rhodes, N., & Sawday, J. (2000). The Renaissance Computer : Knowledge Technology in the First Age of Print. London: Routledge.
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