To many of these desperately poor people, it was as if we in the mainstream West were unable to see that often we were the authors of our own misfortunes. They were diagnosing a weird kind of social senility. It was a diagnosis that in many ways resembled Innis's conclusion that the West, and particularly the United States, was losing its balance and becoming increasingly blinded by its intense present-mindedness. As a result, it was prone to resort to force to solve its problems.

The discovery of periodicity in the heavens enormously strengthened the position of religion in its control over time and continuity.

The oral as compared with the written transmission of tradition was inherently more consistent and logical in its results because of the constant sifting, refining, and modifying of what did not fit into the tradition. … Fact shifted into legend, legend into myth. Facts worked loose and became detached from their roots in space and time.

Printing emphasized vernaculars, reduced the speed of movement of ideas, and divided the European mind.

Science had gained in the escape from the monopoly of knowledge in terms of time but eventually lost in the development of knowledge in terms of space.

The vested interests of the printing industry tend to check the movement of ideas and to contribute to the building-up of monopolies, and, ultimately, to the breaking-over into other languages and to the ebb and flow of movements.

The post office became an object of intense political interest and after 1825 a federal postal department was separated from the revenue system and made independent.

The telegraph and the fast press in the metropolitan areas des- troyed the power of party based on the post office, the exchange system, and state capitals. Instability weakened the position of a central authority after 1840. Power shifted from Washington and issues were no longer settled in Congress. The metropolitan press destroyed a centrally directed government.

A monopoly which accentuates more rapid dissemination brings about a profound disruption of society.

MECHANIZATION has emphasized complexity and confusion; it has been responsible for monopolies in the field of knowledge; and it becomes extremely important to any civilization, if it is not to succumb to the influence of this monopoly of knowledge, to make some critical survey and report. The conditions of freedom of thought are in danger of being destroyed by science, technology, and the mechaniza- tion of knowledge, and with them, Western civilization.

With only a few radio and television stations thousands must listen to each station and progress must be based on the few simple ideas which large groups of people have in common. The immediacy of radio has been used effectively in politics for uncomplicated nationalistic appeals. That national leaders have remained in power for unusual lengths of time is a fact not unrelated to the use of radio. Personal magnetism reflected over national networks has produced tendencies toward centralized control, the importance of which can- not be fully assessed.