Of Stone, Books, and Freedom

Abstract

Harold Innis’ original social theory has often been charged with "technological determinism." If this means that Innis ascribed social structure and historical developments to "technology", the charge is false. By studying two widely separated examples we can see that Innis had a sophisticated ecological understanding of the many forces at work in social dynamics, of which technologies were but one set. The impact of stone and its competition with papyrus in ancient Egypt was, Innis showed, not totally deterministic. There were significant attempts to play one medium off against another and the related institution of politics off against religion. Millennia later, in modern Europe, Gutenberg’s invention of the mechanical printing press led to the book’s ultimately successful competition with the traditional medium, parchment manuscript, and to the decline of the Church. Here too freedom flourished in the social interstices, as the essay shows.