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06832_Field_TCUM T397.txt
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1996-04-10
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982b
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16 lines
Margaret Mead has reported that when she brought
several copies of the same book to a Pacific island there was
great excitement. The natives had seen books, but only one
copy of each, which they had assumed to be unique. Their
astonishment at the identical character of several books was a
natural response to what is after all the most magical and
potent aspect of print and mass production. It involves a
principle of extension by homogenization that is the key to
understanding Western power. The open society is open by
virtue of a uniform typographic educational processing that
permits indefinite expansion of any group by additive means.
The printed book based on typographic uniformity and
repeatability in the visual order was the first teaching machine,
just as typography was the first mechanization of a handicraft.
Yet in spite of the extreme fragmentation or specialization of
human action necessary to achieve the printed word, the