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SOME HUMOROUS NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF
INFORMATION
(or: DO YOU BELIEVE IN PROGRESS?)
Theresa Catharina de Góes Campos
In Ancient Egypt, most of the drawings had
political overtones, although a good number of
them simply represented ordinary scenes or just
a moment of criticism. One of the best known: a
deer is playing chess (a game similar to chess)
with a lion and, before the end of the match,
the lion takes over the bet. The deer symbolized
the naïve and defenseless citizens who dared to
play with Pharaoh Ramses the Second.
Another very first cartoon, in the history of
communication – the highest Egyptian authority
is disguised as a wicked cat guiding a band of
innocent ducks …
In Rome, at the time of Caesar, the news was
transmitted by word of mouth to the most far
away provinces, thus confirming Homer’s verses
referring to “words with wings”. People believed
in the goddess of Fame, one of many in the
Greek-Roman mythology. They thought Fame was a
divinity with one hundred eyes, ears and mouths.
In the vast empire of Alexander the Great, all
kinds of information from distant places were
brought to the Emperor by his special civil
servants, called “the king’s eyes and ears”, the
predecessors of modern spies.
In the New World, the Governor of Virginia
declared, in 1671: “Thank God we have no free
schools nor printing shops and I hope that in
the next hundred years we still won’t have them.
Wisdom has generated disobedience, heresy and
cults in the world; and the press has been
spreading these things and insults against the
government. Deliver us, o God, from both free
schools and newspapers.”
After Gutenberg printed, in 1437, the first book
in the world – “The Last Judgement” – a
conference held in Germany to discuss his
invention came to the following conclusion: “…
while it is interesting, it will never be of
great significance because so few people can
read.”
Some monarchs, though, were clever enough to
realize the great importance of the press. They
so much wanted to get hold of its secrets that
they chose special messengers for the mission of
stealing Gutenberg’s plans. Charles II, of
France, as well as Henry VI, were among the
European kings who sent their envoys to spy the
inventor's printing office.
Seventy years after the Pilgrim’s arrival and
almost two centuries after Columbus discovered
America, the United States had its first
newspaper, issued in Boston on September 25,
1690 and printed in equipment operated by hand,
in a wooden cabin. It was called “Public
Occurrences” and the fourth page showed no text
so the readers would
write their own news. The first number became
the last one, due to the
criticism of two reports and also to the public
outcry against its
appearance itself. The first news referred to
English troops attacking
the French, in Canada. Benjamin Harris, the
editor of “Public
Occurrences”, was immediately arrested.
The Congress of the United States used to greet
with loud laughs and giggles the man who
invented the telegraph. Samuel Morse’s project
was looked upon as a foolish, ridiculous thing.
It took lots of persistence until the inventor
got the credit he desperately needed to put his
plans into practice. Using the funds approved in
1843, the first test took place on May 22, 1844
and it was a huge success.
Sir William Breece, then chief engineer of
Britain’s post office was asked, soon after
Alexander Bell invented the telephone, in 1876,
if it was likely to affect his country. Breece
replied – “The Americans have need of the
telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of
messenger boys”.
The same pessimistic attitude was found among
the “experts” who evaluated the potential of
television; one of them said: “………….Commercially
and financially, consider it an impossibility, a
development of which we need waste little time
dreaming.”
Now that we know they were all proved wrong, it
is easy to pinpoint the reasons which account
for the survival of radio and newspapers,
despite the advent of television.
We are also led to think more about the
contemporary news in a way which will foresee
the years to come and its technological progress
already taken for granted in our thoughts. We
might even be tempted to think of ourselves like
some kind of scientists with our vision and
understanding of things yet to come. We are
still amazed at Alexander Bell, who predicted
the flying machine in 1877, a forecast that
scientists of the time thought it was
preposterous. According to historian Robert V.
Bruce, in 1896 Bell was working with and backing
financially Samuel P. Langley, who almost won
the race with the Wright brothers into the skies
with the first airplane.
But the Brazilian scientist Alberto
Santos-Dumont was the first to really fly! (October
23, 1906).
The “teacher of the deaf” – as Bell liked to
describe himself – sponsored in 1909 the Silver
Dart, which Douglas McCurdy flew off a frozen
lake near Bell’s home at Baddeck, Cape Breton.
That was “the first heavier-than-air flight in
Canada, and the first by a British subject in
the British Empire.” Though the telephone
inventor’s mathematics were too elementary – and
some argue that because of this Bell was not
really a scientist – he backed Albert
Michelson’s experiments in measuring the speed
of light. From these experiences, undertaken in
1881, came the data on which Einstein based his
theories of relativity. This is another reason
to fully justify the folks’ pride in Brantford,
Ontario. When Alexander Bell immigrated with his
family from Scotland, in 1870, at age 23, his
parents settled there, while he went to work in
Boston.
The arguments on whether Bell was a scientist or
not just don’t change my mind. I think it is
reasonable to conclude that his wisdom proved
itself great enough to use the information known
at the time for practical purposes of short and
long range. His knowledge had the ability to
grasp the importance of projects still in the
early stages and foresee their development.
Instead of laughing at new ideas, Bell would
study and encourage their pioneers with funds
and moral support. I guess he was always too
busy to waste time resorting to negative
criticism or giggles.
If we learned anything from these historical
recollections, we should start making a review
of our ideas and personal reactions to whatever
seems hard to believe nowadays. The golden rule
is to avoid any pessimistic statement regarding
projects so advanced we are tempted to reject
them as if they were science fiction. Nothing is
really fantasy. Dreams just happen to come
before accomplishments, following a very common
pattern we have to get used to recognize it.
What is education worth, anyway, if we don’t use
it in a comprehensive, intelligent way? It
should be a tool not a parcel to be stored away.
The education of every human being, the result
of the contributions of many, cannot be owned
individually. Many others expect and demand
their share. We have no right to hold it back.
Theresa Catharina de Góes Campos
Brasília-DF, 1966 |
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