New Media

Aldous Huxley's idea Murray uses as throughout the book (basically "will the stories brought to us by the new representational technologies 'mean anything' in hte same way that Shakespeare's plays mean something, or will they be 'told by an idiot'?") is insanely interesting, and one which I've been thinking about since reading Brave New World in a high school class.

What I've been thinking about more lately, though, is the inherent assumptions within such a question: why exactly do Shakespeare's plays mean what they mean? I think it's a strong tendency of American culture to privilege the past in such discourses, to assume the supremacy of what's come before in the face of what's new. I know, I know, Shakespeare is Shakespeare and obviously his work is exemplary, but it isn't because he was working in literature. It wasn't the medium that made Shakespeare as amazing and influential as he was, it was him, his work, and his ability to manipulate his medium.

I think the conclusion Murray draws is right on point: "We need every available form of expression and all the new ones we can muster to help us understand who we are and what we are doing here". I think this should be what we keep in mind when discussing the emergence of future forms of art & new media--it isn't the medium we should be so worried about it, it's how we choose to use it.