Professors of political philosophy boarded the tutor seat of "Strange Story", cultural celebrities who had attacked entertainment culture as "cheap and superficial" stepped onto the stage of "Spit Conference", professors and experts have started classes at Station B or the Himalayas, more and more professional intellectuals have joined the mass media with an attitude of enlightenment, is enlightenment really rejuvenating? Is the popularization of knowledge enlightenment? What kind of opportunities does the current Internet mass media provide for the popularization and enlightenment of knowledge? How do we think about the dissemination and enlightenment of knowledge in the Internet age?
<h3>The secondary spoken language culture of the television and Internet era</h3>
The Internet has brought a real "media technology" revolution to mass media. The revolution in media technology has created the conditions for innovative discourse methods for the dissemination of knowledge. Network programs such as variety shows and informative audio are innovative discourses in the digital media era. Since most of the knowledge disseminated by electronic media is spoken by mouth and heard with ears, it is a "secondary spoken language" expression. Secondary oral knowledge dissemination means are similar to spoken language, which limits the serious and rational thinking of the text media.
American scholar Walter Weng, who proposed the concept of "secondary spoken language".
Walter J. Ong, a well-known American cultural historian, proposed the concept of "secondary spoken language" in his famous book "Spoken language and Written Culture" (Translated by He Daokuan, Peking University Press, 2008), which is different from "native spoken language". Native spoken language is the natural spoken language before the text media became the main means of communication, and the unscripted or illiterate people used oral transmission to communicate and communicate with each other, forming a native spoken language culture. Secondary spoken language is an unnatural spoken language that is influenced by words but is different from written media, "and this new spoken language culture has striking similarities: the mystery of participation, the cultivation of a sense of community, the focus on the moment, and even the use of clichés." The language of television is spoken orally, but it is also written, forming a typical secondary spoken language culture.
In Entertaining to Death (translated by Zhang Yan, CITIC Press, 2015), the American media scholar Bozeman expressed great concern about the serious thinking of television culture restricting and weakening the text. Writing, he said, has a "well-ordered character of logical propositions that can cultivate ... Analytical management capabilities for knowledge. Reading text means following a line of thought, which requires the reader to have a strong ability to classify, reason, and judge. The reader should be able to discover lies, discern the confusion of the author's pen, distinguish between overly general generalizations, and find out where logic and common sense are abused. At the same time, the reader must also have the ability to judge, compare different points of view, and be able to give one example and one example. In order to do this, the reader must maintain a certain distance from the text, which is determined by the characteristics of the text itself that is not affected by emotion. That is why a good reader does not rejoice or applaud at the discovery of any aphorisms – a reader who is too busy with analysis to take care of them."
Neil Bozeman and his famous book Entertain to Death.
Today, the Internet's secondary colloquial culture is once again putting serious thinking in front of us. The Internet differs from television in that it is a hybrid medium of secondary spoken and written language. Compared with the text media, whether it is television culture or Internet culture, the secondary spoken language is limited in its analysis, reasoning and judgment functions, and cannot be compared with the depth and thoughtfulness of the text media. Of course, electronic media have also developed some compensatory means, which in turn have formed some of their own advantages, but those are mainly entertainment, illustration or knowledge popularization, rather than the advantages of serious reading and humanistic thinking.
In terms of knowledge popularization, Internet-social media provides great convenience for knowledge to go out of the campus and lectures out of the classroom, although the content of the lectures may not have enlightenment value, but the scope of the knowledge audience has been greatly expanded. The production of knowledge online also has the advantage of a large number of participants, allowing multiple people to write, share, evaluate, discuss, communicate with each other, forming tools and platforms for sharing opinions, experiences and opinions. This can change passive access to information into active dissemination, reduce the cost of dissemination, and improve the efficiency of dissemination.
Internet-social media has developed some useful ways to popularize and disseminate knowledge, among which we are particularly worthy of our attention is the audio knowledge platform for a fee or no fee, such as Get, Zhihu, Douban, Himalaya, Amazon, Kan ideal and so on. Some argue that such knowledge dissemination, with its systematic anti-network fragmented learning, is an alternative to reading. However, since many of these programs belong to the secondary oral culture, it is easy to forget after listening to them, and it is difficult to become lasting knowledge. Due to the lack of patience in reading or listening to lectures on the Internet, many readers prefer "short lessons" (around 20-30 lectures), and many short courses in the humanities category are quite popular.
Some commentators put forward three points of vigilance reminder for online lectures, first, vigilance listened very coolly, "there are actually a lot of well-spoken columns, listening to it is very hi, after listening to it, there is nothing left." Second, be wary of learning to talk about materials, "Some columns are good at telling stories and hunting knowledge, and it is easy for people to learn to talk about materials." Third, be wary of time-sensitive content, "if it is not out of the needs of work, try to listen to less time-sensitive content, such as news, finance and social hotspots, and some dry goods, it is easy to become outdated and meaningless." In addition to vigilance, there is also a suggestion, "When encountering good audio, it is best to listen to it again every short period of time to deepen the memory."
These reminders and suggestions are pertinent and all relate to the secondary spoken language characteristics of online teaching. Audio lectures are not a read-aloud version of textual expressions, just as web knowledge is not an electronic version of textual knowledge. There is a difference between the secondary oral knowledge (of which audio is one) that the Enlightenment discourse operates through electronic media today and the knowledge that text books disseminate.
<h3>Secondary spoken language culture cannot replace written culture</h3>
In the literal formulation of humanistic thought or scholarship, published words are given far more authority and authenticity than spoken language, because people speak more casually than they write down. Written text is the result of careful consideration, repeated revision by the author, and even checked by experts and editors. Such text is easier to check or argue with and has an objective character. Bozeman points out that "the object of written writing is essentially the objective world, not an individual." Written words can last forever, while spoken language disappears instantly, which is why written words are closer to truth than spoken language."
Will the status of the written word be shaken by the advent of the Internet? If the Internet did have an impact on these, what is the extent and nature of the impact?
The advent of written culture, which had brought about a major change in the way the ancients thought in spoken language, today, the advent of the electronic and digital age seems to have revived spoken language culture in a new form, secondary spoken language culture. However, the native spoken language culture is not a culture that is impregnated by printed characters, while the secondary spoken language culture has already been infected by this. Therefore, the secondary oral culture of the Internet age has the characteristics of both oral culture and written culture, but it is both insufficient and insufficient. It is neither as deep as the in-depth thinking of the written culture, nor the real sense of collectivity and unity of the spoken language culture, and its sense of collectivity and unity is virtual.
Text reading is a lonely individual act, as long as there is a book, no one else can complete, to think deeply, it is best to have no other person. Oral communication is different, it is often a group of people listening together, just like watching a live ball game or concert, it needs to have a partner audience to have an atmosphere, so "listening" can produce a group companion feeling that "reading" does not have.
In secondary spoken language cultures, even if you listen to an audio program alone at home, you will have a group presence because you have other listeners at the same moment. The "live questioning" or "bullet screen" technology of the Internet and offline deliberately creates such a feeling effect. Walter Weng said, "Secondary spoken language culture also produces a strong sense of community, because the process of listening to people is the process of listening to groups of listeners... But the group produced by the secondary spoken language culture is much larger than the group produced by the native spoken language culture, and it is even incalculable." The Internet allows the "listener" group to expand almost infinitely, so we see that book reading can only form a small public with a limited range of readers, while Internet audio can form an incalculable range of "fan" groups.
Some forms of media discourse in the Internet era have changed the previous concept of knowledge and the nature of knowledge, and the entertaining "Strange Story" or "Spit Conference" is one of them. Some people believe that the same idea can be expressed in different media, and that the way in which the idea is expressed has nothing to do with the truth of the idea. This is wrong.
Herbert M. McLuhan, a prominent pioneer in media studies and a well-known Canadian communication scientist, has long proposed a widely influential view of the medium in his book Understanding the Medium: On the Extension of Man (1964): "The medium is the message". He said, "The media is the message, but it means that any influence of any medium (i.e., any extension of man) on the individual and society arises from a new scale; any extension of ours (or any new technology) introduces a new scale into our affairs." In fact, in today's Internet age, the restrictive influence of media discourse on the concept and nature of knowledge is even more profound than what McLuhan saw in the era of television.
The famous Canadian communication scientist McLuhan.
For example, it is impossible to broadcast Rousseau's Social Contract in sections of a television-network program such as "Strange Story" or "Spit On the Assembly", let alone a work like Smith's "Theory of Moral Sentiments". Even if you try to do this in an audio program, the effect will not be good. So what to do? The only way to do that is to simplify and simplify again. As we've seen in many informative audios, the knowledge presented is extremely simplified. Because of the need for simplification and colloquial expression, it often becomes an obvious problem to take meanings out of context, to find excerpts, to process quotations, to replace discourse with aphorisms.
Such forms of media discourse have actually changed the concept of knowledge about the classics: the mistaken belief that knowledge should have been sufficiently refined and could be briefly summarized. The classics are too wordy and are a form of knowledge that should be eliminated, just as the 18th-century Enlightenment eliminated the "book" of the Renaissance to speak to the monarch. Moreover, forms of media discourse such as "Strange Story" or "Spit Conference" have formed a new kind of "authoritative knowledge", that is, a kind of "seemingly profound universal knowledge". Just as pop singers became "musicians" in the mass media era, popularizing knowledge became the "philosophical thinking" of the mass media era. This is not so much a musical or philosophical failure as a triumph of mass media.
<h3>The popularization of knowledge is not a substitute for enlightenment</h3>
Extremely simplified knowledge creates a Ockham's razor dilemma. Occam's razor now refers to the same problem, which should not be complicated if it can be explained in a relatively simple way. The "razor" of Occam's razor refers to the removal of unnecessary assumptions, explanations, or elaborations. For the humanistic enlightenment, this will become a paradox: if a classic work can really be reduced to a few words to explain clearly, then the classic original is a failure or superfluous, and it is not worth the time and hard work of reading it. Now some people advocate "pleasant reading", hoping that through extreme simplification, first mix a face familiar, throw bricks and jade, stimulate the reader's interest, and guide them to read the original work. But to be fair, how many readers will really be like this? The "variety" discourse of serious knowledge entering the mass media cannot but adapt to its "performance" requirements, and it is necessary to cut the knowledge to the "pleasure" of the suitability, and to meet and adapt to the audience's needs for showing off and talking.
In fact, the classic works of the Enlightenment were written in "reasonable prose", not "pleasant" material. Franklin said in his autobiography that people say that they love reason, but only lip service, and are not necessarily willing to expend energy and effort on "rational prose."
Of course, as a primary popularization of knowledge, it is not worthwhile to give art or read, but it is obvious that such popularization of knowledge is not enlightenment, let alone a substitute for enlightenment.
Enlightenment is a work of knowledge dissemination that matures people through the renewal of concepts and the training of hard thoughts. Not all eras of intellectual renewal or explosion were the Age of Enlightenment, the Renaissance and the 17th Century Era of New Scientific Rationality were both times of knowledge renewal and explosion, but why do we call the 18th Century the Age of Enlightenment? This is because the 18th-century Enlightenment spread knowledge with the intention of political and social reform, and in the words of Peter Guy in The Age of Enlightenment, the Enlightenment preferred a knowledge that served values, "whose absolute principles are freedom, tolerance, reason, and humanity." ...... They are convinced that knowledge itself is a value and that ignorance is always an unfortunate, but they are equally convinced that knowledge, though it has value, is not necessarily always properly applied."
The Enlightenment, therefore, focused on knowledge that, if properly applied, would have the value of correcting the evils of the times, because "there are too many injustices to be corrected, too many superstitions to be punctured, too many unkindness to be improved, so the Enlightenment philosophers refuse to give up the posture of being modern Socrates and modern Cato." In China's new cultural movements from the late Qing Dynasty to the early 20th century, as well as in the 1980s, the Enlightenment also spread knowledge with the intention of political and social reform.
The popularization of general knowledge is not a substitute for enlightenment. First of all, the popularization of ordinary knowledge is limited to the institutional fine professional division, which is a kind of "small lattice" knowledge placed in a professional grid. Many online classes have gone out of the classroom and out of the campus, but they have not stepped out of the small grid of the profession. Enlightenment, on the other hand, is a kind of humanistic education and civic education that is not limited by small grids. Universality has its own value, but it cannot replace enlightenment, just as universal education has its importance, but it cannot replace humanistic education and civic education. Popularization breaks the walls of the school, and enlightenment breaks the walls of disciplines. Enlightenment thus became the education of man and citizen.
Secondly, the popularization of small lattice knowledge in different majors is far and near to the enlightenment knowledge that has a clear humanistic value orientation, and some disciplines (such as political philosophy and jurisprudence) are close to these values, because they themselves have been baptized by the Enlightenment in the 18th century, and have inherited its basic concepts and humanistic values from the Enlightenment, so in fact it cannot be a political philosophy or jurisprudence that promotes authoritarian dictatorship. This is due to the content of the discipline and is not necessarily the explicit purpose chosen by the disseminator of knowledge. The humanistic education of enlightenment is different, and its purpose of disseminating knowledge consistent with freedom, reason, tolerance, and humanitarian values is always clear.
Moreover, the difference between knowledge popularization and enlightenment is equivalent to the difference between knowledge and wisdom. No matter how rich and comprehensive a person's knowledge is, he may not have wisdom, may not necessarily understand what is the value of life, why people live, how to distinguish between right and wrong and good and evil, how to refuse to go with the flow in adversity, and behave in an upright manner.
In today's world where Internet technology has made knowledge very convenient and even readily available, people are becoming more and more knowledgeable, but not necessarily more and more intelligent. In the unwise state of mere contentment with "bread and circus", a new type of foolishness has emerged, and everywhere one can see the ignorance of schooling, the stupidity of reading, the passionless fanaticism, the superstition of no faith. For the 18th-century Enlightenment, at least the French Enlightenment, the Catholic Church was the culprit in creating mass ignorance, superstition and fanaticism, and Voltaire cried out to "destroy the scum". This "scum" is the Roman Catholic Church and its corrupt clergy. Voltaire said, "The first scoundrel meets the first fool and becomes the first theologian." Kant said that enlightenment is "the courage to seek knowledge." However, Voltaire and Kant's perception of enlightenment is no longer relevant today.
Today, it is not the church and the clergy who make people fall into stupidity and superstition, and what hinders "courage to learn" today is not only "cowardice" and "laziness" as Kant called it, but not knowing how to distinguish between true and false, and not knowing how not to be deceived. The prospects for enlightenment in the Internet age have become broader rather than narrower, and enlightenment faces more complex and urgent tasks. The change in media tools did not change the value and goal of the Enlightenment, which was that man saw himself as a master of tools, not a slave. It is an enlightenment of the human mind and autonomous consciousness. This was true during the Enlightenment in the 18th century, and it is still true today, and it will remain so in the future.
(The original title of this article is "Enlightenment and Knowledge Dissemination in the Era of Internet Mass Culture", and the current title is drafted by the editor)
Xu Ben