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.

Harold Innis, The Bias of Communication, loc. 1123