The death of print

We live in a time of endings, but also in a time of beginnings. Recently a friend told me she felt a great loss at the “death of print”, the decline and likely disappearance of many newspapers. It felt to her momentous and the times were uncertain.

I agree. There is enormous transition going on. To me it seems like the entire Western project, the civilisation whose political, economic and social ways have come to dominate the planet, is undergoing fundamental change. Institutions that emerged during the Age of Reason like the press and parliamentary democracy seem particularly moribund at the present time.  

But with endings, there are always beginnings. This is something we often fail to see. When a person dies, for instance, the family and friends grieve for a time and then go on with their lives. The death is felt as a loss, which it is. But it also opens the door to new relationships. Those who are left behind have a new experience of life, a difference in the makeup of things, a re-ordering of reality. Often that which has been neglected or unseen comes to the surface and opportunities for growth and enlightenment inevitably arise.

Every death heralds a birth. This is not something easily grasped by the rational mind. Most of the time we see material existence as a moving jumble of discrete and isolated phenomena. But the connections are everywhere, on all levels, and interdependence is the overriding reality. A deep and fundamental understanding of relationship is, I think, something that humans are evolving towards, but it requires a shift in the psychic dominance of rationality and a greater opening to mystical experience.

The ecology movement is one of the primary catalysts in turning our minds towards relationship. Scientists are increasingly aware of the biological interdependence of life on Earth, and how life-supporting ecosystems exist in delicate balance. Take one part out of an ecosystem and the whole, dynamic web is changed. When we revere nature, when we are awestruck by a mountain or moved by the lushness of a forest or the grandeur of the sea, we turn inwards to a profound place of oneness, which is mystical experience. 

What birth arrives with the death of print? I don’t find this easy to answer, and it’s probably still too early to tell. The breakdown of the traditional press as mass opinion-forming agents creates an opening for multiplicity and diversity of views – we have seen this in the internet – but those views are not necessarily mature or enlightened. The shift towards the internet is also a means by which culture is fragmented as people seek out their own niche interests and news, abandoning the broad-based and generalist news services. The fragmentation, in my opinion, furthers the decline of the political-economic-social system we live under. It makes society more unpredictable and volatile.

Before new forms are created there is a period of gestation, usually involving conflict and crisis. We don’t know how long the present period of transition will last, but it’s safe to say that the seeds of the new order are already in existence. The seeds of love and unity are daily watered by the actions of millions of people across the world.