History is made up of cycles. Just as we have Romantic and Classical periods in art, music, and science, we also have such revolutions in language. Chinese characters are a great example of this:
The characters first start out very primal, basic, almost like juvenile etchings. The characters really look like they’re real-life counterparts. There is little embellishment and little ‘creative license’. However, by the time we get to xiaozhuan, or lesser seal script, the characters are already beginning to be aggrandized and complicated. The difference between oracle bone and lesser seal script for the character of ‘cloud’ is enormous. With the evolution of writing mediums, people are beginning to develop a higher, more civilized style of writing. They are progressing beyond their state of barbarism, and the crude characters they had previously written simply were not enough. They must be artistically modified to show the individual’s advancement. They are now able to draw more ornate characters because of their progression in mediums. By the time the clerkly script and the standard script roll around, the characters have grown more stylized and particular to the Chinese. The decadence of the script represents an individual’s knowledge progression. The individual is able to develop a thoroughness in their knowledge intake, an almost ‘decadent’ education.
However, as we grow into the standard script, we begin to see a change in the characters. They seem to be more simplified, more economized. Even though the Chinese have the medium technology draw the complicated, ornate characters they previously had, they exemplify a tighter, more straightforward approach to writing. Why would they do that? For societal progress.
Progress isn’t always defined as more; sometimes it means less. Because of their technological progression, they began to simplify their writing system to keep up with the other, more important demands of the day. The focus shifts from the beautiful writing to the actual subject matter. Spending too much time writing would just be a waste.
The way we communicate has undergone a similar cycle. When once we focused on the art of writing itself, or the thoroughness of a particular medium, communication of knowledge is all about speed today. That is both the highlight and the pitfall of the digital age.
In elementary schools, penmanship is taught up until third grade, when children learn cursive, but soon gives way to computer classes and other, more relevant and useful mediums. Comparing common penmanship now to penmanship a century ago, it is evident that the focus is elsewhere.
The ‘thoroughness vs. speed’ mindset is also evident in the way we acquire knowledge as well as what type of knowledge we deem vital enough to acquire. While we are still required to learn some actual facts, learning how to access that knowledge seems more important now.
In both written/printed language and knowledge selection, progression acts as a stairway to more progress. The greater mass of knowledge we are able to ‘get over’, the quicker we are able to progress. While this is good for society (the quick access of information leads to more possibilities for knowledge discovery), it can also be disadvantageous to the individual in some ways. It makes the individual reliant upon technology for their knowledge. While they retain the information to access the knowledge, the knowledge is not their own. Take away the technological banks of information, and the individual has nothing.
In conclusion, focus of a particular people’s knowledge intake makes the difference between societal and individual progression. A thorough, decadent education benefits the individual, as they are able to intake and retain a better quality of knowledge. However, having digital mediums that allow the quick access of vast amounts of information benefits the progress of society as a whole.
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