The Brutalist: Shrine To The Dynamic Years

 

The creation of print and code differs significantly in process, purpose, tools, and flexibility. Below is a detailed comparison:

1. Purpose and Intent

• Print: The creation of print—such as books, newspapers, or magazines—aims to produce a fixed medium to convey information, tell stories, or share ideas. It’s designed for passive consumption, where the audience reads or views the content without altering it.

• Code: The creation of computer code focuses on building something functional—software, applications, or systems—that performs tasks, solves problems, or automates processes. It’s meant to be executed and interacted with, producing dynamic results based on inputs.

2. Creation Process

• Print: The process is linear and finite. It typically involves:

• Writing the content.

• Editing for clarity and accuracy.

• Typesetting or designing the layout.

• Printing the final product.Once printed, the content is locked in place. Any changes require a new edition or reprint, making the process rigid and time-consuming.

• Code: The process is iterative and ongoing. It includes:

• Writing the code.

• Testing it to ensure it works.

• Debugging to fix errors.

• Deploying it for use.After deployment, code can be updated or refined based on new needs or feedback, offering flexibility and adaptability.

3. Skills and Tools

• Print: Creation requires skills in writing, editing, and design. Tools include:

• Word processors (e.g., Microsoft Word).

• Design software (e.g., Adobe InDesign).

• Printing presses or physical production methods.The emphasis is on readability and visual appeal.

• Code: Creation demands programming skills, logical thinking, and problem-solving. Tools include:

• Programming languages (e.g., Python, JavaScript).

• Integrated development environments (e.g., Visual Studio Code).

• Version control systems (e.g., Git).The focus is on functionality and efficiency.

4. Flexibility and Interactivity

• Print: The result is static and non-interactive. Once produced, it doesn’t change or respond to the reader. Any interaction is limited to the reader’s interpretation.

• Code: The result is dynamic and interactive. It can adapt to user inputs, evolve with updates, and provide different experiences based on how it’s used.

5. Mutability

• Print: Once printed, it’s immutable. Errors or updates require a costly and slow reprint process.

• Code: It’s mutable. Changes can be made quickly through edits, patches, or new versions, allowing continuous improvement.

The 20th-Century Classroom: Print-Dominated

In the 20th century, education was deeply rooted in print media—textbooks, newspapers, and written assignments defined the classroom experience. McLuhan believed that print, as a medium, encouraged a linear, sequential way of thinking. It emphasized visual learning, individualism, and a structured approach to knowledge. Classrooms reflected this reality: students sat in rows, listened to lectures, and absorbed information passively through reading and writing. This print-dominated environment fostered a culture of specialization and detachment, where learning was compartmentalized into subjects and delivered in a one-way flow from teacher to student.

The 21st-Century Classroom: Code-Dominated

By contrast, the 21st-century classroom is increasingly shaped by digital technologies—computers, interactive platforms, and coding education have become central. McLuhan would likely see code as the dominant medium of this era, enabling non-linear, participatory, and multisensory experiences. Unlike print, code allows students to engage actively with information, whether through programming, collaborating online, or creating digital content. This shift aligns with McLuhan’s vision of electronic media as extensions of the human nervous system, fostering a “global village” where learning is interconnected, instant, and communal. The code-dominated classroom breaks free from the linear constraints of print, offering an immersive and dynamic educational experience.

McLuhan’s Foresight in 1974: Anticipating a Code-Dominated Future

In 1974, McLuhan was already observing the rise of electronic media—television, radio, and the early stirrings of computing—and their transformative potential. He famously stated, “We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us,” suggesting that new media would fundamentally alter how society functions. By this time, he recognized that electronic media were moving culture away from the linear, print-based world toward a more interconnected and participatory one. While he didn’t use the term “code” as we do today, his concept of the “electric age” encompassed qualities—tactility, immediacy, and decentralization—that digital code and technologies embody.

McLuhan’s foresight in 1974 makes it plausible that he saw the possibility of a code-dominated 21st century. He understood that media evolution was accelerating, and electronic tools were poised to dominate. His idea of the “inner space race” further supports this: he viewed it as a competition to explore and shape human perception and consciousness, with media as the primary instruments. By 1974, he likely sensed that electronic media—and their eventual offspring, digital systems and code—would become the most potent tools in this race, reshaping education and society by 2024.

Television: The Black Cube and the All-Seeing Eye

You describe television as a “black cube” that replaced the book, acting as an “all-seeing eye of the masses.” This is a powerful metaphor. In the 20th century, television emerged as an “electronic magnet,” projecting data directly into viewers’ brains, where it was translated into vivid images. Unlike books, which demanded active engagement—interpreting text, imagining scenes, and thinking critically—television offered passive light. It delivered ready-made visuals and narratives, requiring little effort from a “print-weary public.” This shift marked a cultural turning point: attention moved from the participatory act of reading to the hypnotic ease of watching. Television didn’t just inform; it dominated, shaping perceptions with its effortless, one-way flow of content.

Cyberspace: From Text to Television Redux

When cyberspace first appeared, it echoed the structure of print media. Early internet pages were text-heavy, resembling pages of a book, then evolved into something like an encyclopedia or newspaper—a vast, interconnected repository of information navigated through hyperlinks. Users had to engage actively, much like readers of old. But as you point out, the true explosion of cyberspace came when it began to mirror television, with platforms like YouTube leading the charge. Suddenly, the internet wasn’t just about text; it became a visual and auditory experience, prioritizing passive consumption over active exploration. Videos—streamed, algorithmically curated, and endlessly scrollable—turned cyberspace into a kind of infinite TV set, pulling users in much like the black cube once did.

The 20th Century’s Invasion of the 21st

Here’s where your critique gets especially compelling: “The 20th century invaded cyberspace, blocking the way for 21st century cyberspace.” The broadcast model of television—one-to-many, centralized, passive—didn’t just influence the internet; it colonized it. Platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and streaming services replicated television’s logic: spectacle-driven, controlled by algorithms rather than users, and designed for consumption rather than creation. This inheritance from the 20th century arguably constrained cyberspace’s potential to become something radically new—a medium that could have been more interactive, decentralized, or participatory. Instead of fostering a digital landscape where users shape content and connections in dynamic ways, the internet often feels like television 2.0, tethered to the same old paradigms of control and passivity.

Could Cyberspace Have Been More?

Your observation raises a big “what if.” Had cyberspace not been molded by 20th-century media models, it might have evolved into a more innovative space—perhaps a rhizomatic network, where ideas spread organically, or a user-driven ecosystem, where creation trumps consumption. There are hints of this potential in corners of the web—think open-source communities, decentralized platforms like Mastodon, or indie websites that resist corporate polish. Yet, these remain outliers, overshadowed by the mainstream internet’s television-like inertia.

Final Thoughts

You’ve pinpointed a tension at the heart of media evolution: each new technology carries the baggage of its predecessor. Television supplanted the book’s active engagement with passive viewing, and cyberspace, despite its early promise, largely followed suit. The 20th century’s shadow still looms large, but the question remains: can 21st-century cyberspace shed this legacy? Can it harness its networked, interactive potential to become something truly distinct from the black cube’s glow? Your insight invites us to imagine—and perhaps push for—a digital future that breaks free from the past.

The Last Word Pt.1: Philip K Dick on Finnegans Wake

"Finnegans Wake is a meta-system that at our level does not exist at all because at our level only its plural constituents exist as such. Finnegans Wake is an organization, a structuring, of these constituents, in which they are unified into one entity. Meanwhile the plural constituents at our level behave—or seem to behave—as if unrelated to one another. An entirely new and higher way of organizing the ontological categories by which perception is structured must be reached by the observer. Thus in a sense Finnegans Wake does not exist, but is brought into existence parallel with the percipient’s awareness of it, this having to do with the participant-observer of quantum mechanics. The percipient must participate in being Finnegans Wake to be aware of Finnegans Wake. However, Finnegans Wake is real and is subsuming progressively more and more of its environment. Its internal complexity continually grows. Its metabolism seems to be information and the processing of information. Its plural constituents are arranged in such a way as to constitute a language or information or messages; if you cannot see the arrangement you cannot read the message. And you cannot perceive Finnegans Wake.
So in a sense perceiving Finnegans Wake is reading the message that Finnegans Wake has
arranged constituents into. Not necessarily understanding the message but recognizing it as a message.
   
          Finnegans Wake is both there and not there. When it is not perceived it is not there (as opposed to: when it is not there it is not perceived). It is a way of perceiving reality—which demands a percipient—but when perceived it has definite and intricate characteristics; it is not vague. It consists of structure but a percipient is necessary for that structure to come into being. But the structure is not in the percipient’s mind imposed or projected onto reality. Finnegans Wake did not exist until it was perceived; therefore to experience it is to effect a repair in the Ground of Being (Finnegans Wake being considered as the Ground of Being). One highly important element about Finnegans Wake is that it is eternal, although it changes; it can be added to, become more complex, arborizing and reticulated, but once a constituent is incorporated into it that constituent can never cease to be. Thus Finnegans Wake lies outside the flux of the world we see. However, Finnegans Wake’ world is this world differently perceived, not another world; but it is a quantum leap upward in hierarchy, in which plural constituents become a unity by reason of integrating structure. That structure is added—supplied—by the percipient.

          Finnegans Wake and the perception of Finnegans Wake occur simultaneously, and neither can be separated from the other, ever, at any time.

Finnegans Wake is everywhere—that is, it can be perceived everywhere. It is not in a meta-reality but is a meta-system made entirely from this reality.

  By perceiving Finnegans Wake one participates in the sudden total transformation from plural unrelated constituents to a unitary structure. It is as if Finnegans Wake feeds off the percipient’s perception of structure using perception of structure as structure. But this is an acausal relationship, a kind of parallelism; it is ex nihilo. Finnegans Wake came out of nothing. Reality did not evolve into Finnegans Wake. It became Finnegans Wake when perceived as Finnegans Wake. There are no antithetical forces in Finnegans Wake; the dialectic does not exist when Finnegans Wake does. But when Finnegans Wake ceases to exist, there again is the dialectic. Finnegans Wake uses the dialectic to come into greater being, to grow, assimilate its environment, incorporate new pieces, make itself more inclusive and complex: more Finnegans Wakeish. Finnegans Wake could be compared to the point at which a liquid becomes saturated or when water freezes, except that perception of this is necessary for it to occur.

What if I were to say, iAhuasca is Finnegans Wake seen a certain way?                        

There you have an analogy.   

          Even more strange, Finnegans Wake induces a potential percipient to perceive it and thus cause it (Finnegans Wake) to occur . . . thus it can be said that during its nonexistence Finnegans Wake is able to cause its own existence. At the time that it laid down steps to bring itself into existence it did not yet exist. Thus it treats time differently than we do; it is not passive in relation to time. When it thus brings itself into existence it is already an extensive system. Hence one can say, Finnegans Wake comes and goes but is always in a sense present. The percipient sees Finnegans Wake because Finnegans Wake causes the percipient to see it, but Finnegans Wake did not come into existence until the percipient saw it. Thus the effects of Finnegans Wake are felt before Finnegans Wake exists, and these effects are to be regarded as acausal; they have no cause because their cause does not yet exist. It will exist later; then, retroactively, these effects will have had a cause. What is represented here is total homeostasis: an entity that is entirely self-generating, on which nothing acts but its own internal volition. Therefore in a sense it can be said that Finnegans Wake is (or becomes) anything that acts to cause it to come into existence, which is to say, by perceiving it. This involves laws of physics about which we know nothing, I would think. What certainly is involved, indubitably, is not a more complex entity than we normally know of or have ever heard of, but an entity operating under laws different from the laws we are aware of, including ontological categories of perception organized in ways we have never heard of. Greater complexity is not the key to Finnegans Wake; utilizing of more complex physics is the key to Finnegans Wake. In a certain real sense Finnegans Wake is very simple; it is a unit. You could think of it as a protozoon, a single cell at a higher level of reality, where the laws of space, time and causation are different; and it makes use of that difference. We humans are very complex forms that matter takes at this ontological level of reality, or, if you will, at this level of physics; Finnegans Wake is a very simple organization at the next level up. The billions of constituents of our level form a single cell at its level; these constituents are subsumed and yet at the same time at this level of reality they go about their business as usual. So in a sense Finnegans Wake has no effect on this world. But in another sense it has complete control of this world. Both statements are equally true, depending on whether you can see Finnegans Wake or not.

  This especially applies to the patterns that Finnegans Wake is or creates in our world in which broad sequences of events add up to a coherency. It can be said: There is coherence; there is not coherence. Coherence and Finnegans Wake are the same. Since Finnegans Wake in a very literal way is our world, its internal structure is a latent (concealed) coherence of our world. (All the constituents of Finnegans Wake are elements of our world; it—Finnegans Wake—has nothing else to draw on and it needs nothing else to draw on.) Thus it is possible when viewing Finnegans Wake to view Finnegans Wake as our world and our world as Finnegans Wake.

          One can say of Finnegans Wake, then, that Finnegans Wake is a way our world can be seen to be. Its structure is the structure of our world. Developments in Finnegans Wake are developments in our world. Volition in Finnegans Wake is volition in and of our world. There is no difference between Finnegans Wake and our world except that Finnegans Wake is a certain way of seeing our world in terms of it being a kind of single unit all parts of which are interconnected purposefully and everything is coherent. (In other words it is precisely what Pythagoras called kosmos: the orderly fitting-together of the beautiful.) 

          Viewed this way it operates from internal necessity without the need of any sort of adventitious deity. It is not world to God—creation to Creator—but having its own logic and making its own choices. It chooses continually after examining all the possible choices arranged as information into a sort of narrative made out of language. Nothing created it; it brought itself into being ex nihilo by willing the perception of it—of necessity from within itself, which is a self-awareness. Thus the percipient of Finnegans Wake and Finnegans Wake are part of one field."

Philip K Dick On Valis,  June 1980