We are confronted with the increased
speed and shorter durations of human interactions. A growing
number and a variety of mediating elements in human praxis
challenge our understanding of what we do. Fragmentation and
interconnectedness of the world, the new technology of
synchronization, the dynamics of life forms or of artificial
constructs elude the domain of literacy as they constitute a new
pragmatic framework. This becomes apparent when we compare the
fundamental characteristics of language to the characteristics of
the many new sign systems complementing or replacing it.
Language is sequential, centralized, linear, and corresponds to
the stage of linear growth of humankind. Matched by the linear
increase of the means of subsistence and production required for
the survival and development of the species, this stage reached
its implicit potential. The new stage corresponds to
distributed, non-sequential forms of human activity, nonlinear
dependencies. Reflecting the exponential growth of humankind
(population, expectations, needs, and desires), this new stage
is one of alternative resources, mainly cognitive in nature,
compensating for what was perceived as limited natural means for
supporting humankind. It is a system of a different scale,
suggestively represented by our concerns with globality and
higher levels of complexity. Therefore, humans can no longer
develop within the limitations of an intrinsically centralized,
linear, hierarchic, proportional model of contingencies that
connect existence to production and consumption, and to the
life-support system.
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