A small thought

As I read through Joyce's "Othermindedness" or rather the selection thereof, I'm intrigued by the connections that he makes between the filtration systems of the internet (Google, "metasites," etc.) and the filtrations that occur in the "print culture." He writes, "Almost invisibly in the past, for instance, most library patrons read much more of the online or card catalog entries, book spines, or tables of contents than they read from the volumes themselves. People have only so much time. They can't read everything and so they depend on others to link them to what they need or wish to read" (54). It seems then that according to Joyce, mediation has always been a factor in the way that we receive information, but this mediation has never been so overt as in the case of the internet.

It occurs to me that as students we expect, and probably require mediation. In this class, for instance, we read selections of Ong, Mcluhan, or Joyce, their work having been filtered for us by Professor Fitzpatrick and our other instructors. We rely on them to tell us what is "relevant" to the discussion. Sometimes the idea that there might be something mind-blowing in the stuff that we're NOT reading really bugs me. But then, as Joyce points out, who has the time? Also, if we were left to our own devices, we'd have no idea of where to start. It is true that as Joyce later claims this "insists upon a hierarchy of information, and implies one of human beings," but I don't really think that this is necessarily a bad thing in this context. It's natural and appropriate when it comes to pedagogy that there is a hierarchy, that the more experienced scholar, the teacher, acts as a filter for those of us less experienced. The fact is that even if we were left to our own devices, we'd filter for ourselves, probably in very cursory way. We just aren't capable of dealing with completely unmediated information. We need a context, or it's just so much gibberish.