The written word

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor I keep finding myself looking to history for guidance and inspiration, both here in this column and in life in general.

This week is no exception. If there’s room for “Today in History” in today’s edition of the Times (I never know until it’s time to start actually putting words on the page), you’ll see that the first item on the list of notable events concerns just that… words on a page. (As a side note, after typing “notable events” out I remembered reading one time someone saying, “I never knew until today that NEWS stands for ‘notable events, weather and sports,’” which is cute but is in no way true).

Anyway, on this day in 1457, that’s 565 years ago, Johannes Gutenberg used his newly-invented printing press to rattle off the first printed copy of the Bible. The movable-type printing press is the invention credited with the beginning of unrestricted access to printed word for the masses, and the Guttenberg Bible is considered one of the most important books in human history because of it.

So, as I type this column up for a newspaper that will be printed up a few thousand times and shipped all over Crittenden County (and preserved digitally on our web site), it got me to thinking about the power of the printed word. At this point, some five centuries later, there’s still a great deal of weight and importance put on writing things down, whether it’s in a book, on a scrap piece of paper, in your journal or even in a social media post.

We play a lot of cards in my house, and mostly we play Spades, where you have to place a bid on how many “tricks” you can catch. And we take bidding very seriously around here. So, you can bid, and you can change your bid all the way up until the scorekeeper writes in down. “Once it’s writ, that’s it!” is our family motto. And that’s sort of how we view all written words.

I mean, written words are meant to matter, to be revered and to be obeyed. Like the humble stop sign. When you see that big red octagon with “STOP” on it in bright white letters, you stop. When you put your written name on a contract, it becomes legally binding. Speaking of “legally binding,” we mark the concept of written law to be one of the foundations of human civilization. Even the power of the Ten Commandments comes, at least in part, in that they are written in stone… to the point that “written in stone” is now an expression taken to mean permanent and unchangeable.

It’s that same power that we use today to apply to the things we see online. Here in the 21st century, once something is online, it’s there forever. Oh, you can delete it, wipe it from your computer’s memory, or smash your phone into a million pieces, but will always be there in digital form. If you don’t believe me, post something stupid on Facebook and then run for political office.

So, yes, even in the digital age, there is a great deal of power in the written word, even if it’s not true. Just look at how quickly “fake news” can work its way into the minds of those who read it. What’s the old saying, “A lie can be halfway around the world before the truth can get its shoes tied?” Or something like that.

In Guttenberg’s day, the mass production of the Bible and other works were seen as a way for the common person to have access to literature, religious materials, documents and information previously afforded only to the upper class and those at the upper reaches of the social hierarchy. With the printing press, there was access for everyone. Literacy is still one of the most important parts of becoming a success in life.

We depend on the written word for everything from school to work to business to communicating with our friends and family. Texting, sometimes derided as the eventual downfall of the art of writing, has become one of the most vital and utilized forms of communication in the world, right there with email and social media. You can even look at the emojis and memes of today as things coming full circle with the hieroglyphics of Ancient Egypt as one of mankind’s earliest forms of writing.

So now, as we take easy access to the written word for granted, it’s worth taking time to reflect on how we’ve come from a mass society hungry for words to one who often uses and abuses words to alter the direction of our society. Our words have power. The old adage is, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me,” but if there’s anything we’ve learned in the past 500 years it’s that the old adage is wrong.