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03616_Field_PRAV T14.txt
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1996-04-10
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14 lines
The printing press was the ultimate extension of
phonetic literacy. Books could be reproduced in
infinite numbers; universal literacy was at last
fully possible, if gradually realized; and books
became portable individual possessions. Type, the
prototype of all machines, ensured the primacy of
the visual bias and finally sealed the doom of
tribal man. The new medium of linear, uniform,
repeatable type produced information in unlimited
quantities and at hitherto impossible speeds, thus
assuring the eye a position of total predominance
in man’s sensorium. As a drastic extension of
man, it shaped and transformed his entire
environment, psychic and social, and was directly