Fire and Knowledge

A new article by John Marstall of Firewheel Design is out entitled “A Word Wrapped in Light.” Now, I admit that I thought the world was ending when I read:

Yes, it’s true. With every stroke of the mouse we contribute to the weaving of a great blanket of visual noise which is slowly settling over your capacity for reason, analysis and intellectual enterprise. With every pixel fired into the ether, we force your conceptual faculties deeper into the couch cushions of mental passivity. And we do this without any regard for the consequences to your intellectual life.

Are they serious? Do they really understand the epistemology of images vs. typography? A design company? I almost fell off my chair. But, alas, it is not so. Their conclusion is:

At Firewheel Design, we are excited to play even a small role in exploring this communication frontier. We trust we are not making you stupid in the process. Rather, we hope we’re helping to broaden the number of avenues through which today’s conversations can take place, and making the world of technology a friendlier, more human-centered place.

The article is still worth a read, even if they didn’t quite grasp Postman’s points or refute them. But, they quoted Postman, so they are at least thinking about the issues. I think even a superficial reading of his Amusing Ourselves to Death or Technopoly give enough evidence and history of technology that these kind of rebuttals do not even make a small dent in the tank.