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Nadin, Mihai, 1938-

"The Civilization of Illiteracy"


the need to overcome the arcane stereotypes of language; 6.
the non-linear, non-sequential, open nature of human experiences
brought to the fore through the new scale of humankind.
The list is open-ended. The more our command of images improves,
the more arguments in favor of their use. None of these
arguments should be construed as a blank and non-critical
endorsement of images. We know that we cannot pursue theoretic
work exclusively with images, or that the meta-level (language
about language) cannot be reached with images. Images are
factual, situational, and unstable. They also convey a false
sense of democracy. Moreover, they materialize the shift from a
positivist conception of facts, dominating a literacy-based
determinism, to a relativist conception of chaotic functioning,
embodied, for instance, by the market or by the new means and
methods of human interaction. However, until we learn all there
is to know about the potential of images in areas other than
art, architecture, and design, chances are that we shall not
understand their participation in thinking and in other
traditionally non-image-based forms of human praxis.
Images are very powerful agents for activities involving human
emotions and instincts. They shy away from literal truth,
insofar as the logic of images is different from the logic
inhabiting human experiences of self-constitution in language.


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