The intarwebs.

[The One and Only...]

Is the emergence and continual growth of electronic communication evidence of a shift away from traditional western logocentrism?

[Rongi]

yes

[Dr. Boogie]

Is it even possible for you to make a thread that doesn't contain a word ending with "-ism"?

[Emu]

Yes.

[ArrowX]

didn't you leave OAO?

[El Blanco]

Yes.

[El Blanco]

Damn double post.

[Emu]

Yes.

[Dole]

Is the emergence and continual growth of electronic communication evidence of a shift away from traditional western logocentrism?

Computers. You get the internet on computers.

[Dr. Boogie]

With the abundance of pornography on the internet, we are seeing a shift away from traditional western logocentrism, and a shift toward traditional western jism.

[Marc Summers]

Wow, OAO learned a new word today! He's so smart, and sexy too! I wish I had his muscles!

I believe that the problem isn't the internet itself, but search engines. People don't read up on academic journals, research papers, and other documents that originate from the world of academia as often. Instead, when people want to research something on the topic of "pompous douchebags", they can just type in "OAO AND other pompus douchebags" into Google and get "JOE BLOW'S SITE ON THE HISTORY OF POMPOUS DOUCHEBAGS" followed by captioned pictures of random people off the street, a link to paypal, and a 2-digit hit counter. This has not necessarily replaced going to the library and reading a 300 page document entitled "The Social and Historical Impacts of Pompous Douchbags" written by George P. Hugs, Ph.D., but it is slowly becoming a trend. The shift away from reading more complex academic texts when doing research impairs the ability to decipher something at that level when necessary.

Now that I've answered the question that you couldn't do on your practice midterm for Sociology 1A, will you go away please?

[The One and Only...]

Never.

[kahljorn]

I don't think there was a large amount of people going to the libraries and reading 300 page academia before the internet was around. Most people 50 years ago were too illiterate to do so, and the scale of literacy only decreases the further back you go. In fact, many people, even today, don't read books after school.
The people who would read 300 page academia still are, because the chances of the internet covering the topic they need the way they want is unlikely, these are people like doctors and scholars(and those are the type of people who would visit a library before the internet). Basically, people who are smart will always be smart and make smart decisions because they aren't going to pass their class or function well in their job by studying jackass sites on the internet, and anybody with a brain realizes that. Only stupid people consider the internet a reliable source of information when they are gleaning from sites such as, "JOE BLOW'S SITE ON THE HISTORY OF POMPOUS DOUCHEBAGS".

In that regard the internet has no effect.

[Miss Modular]

logocentrism

Post-modern French Thought is soooo 1990.

[El Blanco]

Also, there is Lexus-Nexus, an internet tool made specifficaly for research purposes. If you are doing serious research on a topic, odds are thats where you will look.

[mburbank]

Okay, Vinth isn't here, neither is Pharoah, I'm pretty sure my slap fight with Abcdgdgch is at least temporarily over...

Oh, alright.

Chist OAO, are you a fucking windbag or what?

I know, I know, I'm phoning it in, but seriously. Is the growth of chest hair and indication that you are moving away from being a prepubesent bag of fuck toward being a pubescent bag of fuck? Ism?

[Archduke Tips]

Logocentrism is one of those buzz words that dumb people use to sound smart.

[kahljorn]

Doesn't the word have multiple meanings? Can you explain which meaning you are intending to talk about, because one sentence doesn't really give me any information.

[pjalne]

It does have multiple meanings, and it's a neologism. So not only is it unprecise, it's also just kinda a word. Derrida was notorious for making words up when existing words didn't apply 100% to what he was talking about.

But let's not drift too far from the actual topic of this thread, which is OAO having learned a new word.

[mburbank]

It's on his 'vocabulary for tools word-a-day calendar'.

And each knew word gives him a chubby.

[The One and Only...]

Logocentrism, in this case, refers to the western valuation of speech over writing (presence over absense).

More and more frequently, individuals are using electronic forms of communication, like messengers, as a replacement for actual speech.

I'm asking if you guys think that the traditional speech over writing bias is being reversed.

[Preechr]

Yes.

[Sethomas]

Well, according to Derrida, semantic value is latent and does not always depend on the author's intent. Applying this to Derrida, taking "logos" as the Greek constituent of "logocentrism", "logos" has many implications of which I can only assume he WAS aware. Namely, not only does "logos" translate to "word" (in the Greek language it applied to both spoken and written utterances) but in post-Enlightenment thinking it referred to pure reason and even abstract thought. Hence, we have the words "reason" derived from the Latin "ratio", yet "logic" derives from "logos".

So, applying Derrida's understanding of textual meaning, we can infer that Derrida, in accusing Western modernity of logocentrism, had actually expressed the fact that Derrida was full of shit.

Getting back on topic, I think that there is something to say that the internet as a mode of conveying knowledge has led to a drastic shift in paradigm from analytical digestion to encyclopedic fact-collecting. As a personal testimony, I'm taking a class right now on Anselm. I can go to wikipedia or the online Catholic Encyclopedia and tell you all you wanted to know about Anselm, but to actually discern what to think about Anselm I have read academic reviews or, God forbid, listen to a Doctor of Philosphy by actually attending class. Give it another decade or so, and things might revert back when free access to academic journals is granted.

The main deal with the internet is that there no longer is a monopoly on "sacred knowledge" within formal Academia. There are ups and downs to this. It used to be that to become an expert required intelligence, ambition, and discipline, but now it seems it only requires Google. Borrowing Anselm, I could find a summary of the Ontological Arugument and some handy translations into what it means, and I could think myself an expert on it because I know what Anselm had to say about it. But at present, the best forms of digestion you can find usually involve angsty rebuttals from kids still pissed-off over years of Sunday School.

As for the academic journal versus the book in terms of creating new knowledge, I think the age of the book is more or less over. The vast majority of academic books on my shelf were written before 1950, and the exceptions are books simply for the fact that the author had to present an entire realm of history in his terms. Take a classic of the 21st Century, The Eternal Soul. Coeternalism could be explained in a few paragraphs, but an adequate explanation of why it's necessary required a long history of relevant religious philosophy. This strategy has its roots at least ot the 19th Century; you have Hegel who said "History follows patterns, let me guide you through the last 3000 years to show you how." A short while later, you have Marx saying in Das Kapital "Political history is the history of class-warfare. Let's look at the last 3000 years to see why."