Over the past centuries, a great transformation in the human experience has occurred. Much of this transformation has occurred not on what we experience but how we experience the events of human history. And how we experience the events of human history has taken a radical turn as the literacy rate of individuals increased. We no longer retain history, we retrieve it.
Prior to the majority of people being able to write and read, how we experience the events of human history was retained through memory. In other words the previous generation passed on their experiences of events to the next generation through an oral tradition in which memory was the vehicle for transmitting history and most importantly the meaning of that history.
As the competency for writing and reading increased, these memories became stored more than transmitted. Therefore as the oral tradition diminished so too did our capacity to transmit meaning through memory. We became reliant on the written tradition to somehow preserve precious memories across generations. Of course with the written tradition came a new way of interpreting those "written memories" of human experiences of significant events in human history. Somehow the preservation of peoples' experiences were no longer dependent on a person's memory, but captured in words that just didn't need interpretation but relied on the interpretation to give meaning to those experiences. Therefore meaning came through interpretation not preservation.
Today we face a new literacy that has gone beyond the written word to the digital tradition. Just as human history has endured the transformation from the oral tradition to the written tradition, where interpretation replaced preservation, we are now at the threshold of a new age in human history. Retention of human events is no longer expected, just retrieval of the event. This presents us an unprecedented dilemma. In the oral tradition, meaning came from memory through appreciation (this is preservation). In the written tradition meaning came from interpreting the memories of those who appreciated. Now in the digital tradition, there is no longer retention of memories through appreciation, preservation or interpretation. Now there is simply retrieval of information.
Of course the information has meaning, interpretation and preservation of experiences, yet it is lost in the vastness of accessible information. Lost in the skill set to retrieve information that has meaning only in the moment of that retrieval. Are we retrieving information or seeking to preserve memories?
Is the next generation becoming so narcissistic that even the events of human history have no meaning to be preserved and passed on? This has a profound impact on the soul of the human person. God created us in such a way to seek meaning beyond ourselves. We are spiritual creatures who were never created to retrieve information for our own self-satisfaction. We owe past generations a debt of gratitude in preserving the memories of human history. Let us teach the next generation to cherish history beyond their own experience. I ought to cherish the memories of those before me because it was their experience, not mine.
