UNDERSTANDING VARIOUS MEDIA

1. Televisions and computers stand to radios and telephones as the noumenal abstract to the phenomenal concrete, since there is something almost ethereal about full screen-utilizing media which sets them apart, on the above-mentioned basis, from the more mundane media, by and large, of radios and telephones.

2. Given that televisions and computers are more noumenal than phenomenal on account of their screen-utilizing abstractness, it seems that they provide us with a kind of technological parallel with fire and air, metachemistry and metaphysics, as though significant of a diabolic/divine dichotomy hovering ethereally above the world.

3. No such dichotomy, however, could be regarded as applying to radios and telephones, since the Elemental parallel here is rather with water and vegetation, chemistry and physics, in what amounts to a kind of feminine/masculine dichotomy more significant of the world than of anything effectively towering above it, whether on an anterior (and metachemical) or a posterior (and metaphysical) basis.

4. One could expect, given their technological natures, that the chief or principal manifestations of antipoetry, antiphilosophy, antidrama, and antiprose would take place in connection with such media of image and sound reproduction, and, to be sure, it may well be that television especially lends itself to an antipoetic bias, computers to an antiphilosophic bias, radio to an antidramatic bias, and telephones to an antiprosodic bias.

5. Be that as it may, there can be no question that a correspondence exists between the noumenal objectivity of television and materialism; between the noumenal subjectivity of computers and idealism; between the phenomenal objectivity of radio and realism; and between the phenomenal subjectivity of telephones and naturalism - at least where the older varieties of each medium are concerned.

6. For it seems to me that these media are capable of evolving or of being evolved from primacy to supremacy, as though from an inorganic parallel to an organic parallel, and that the supersession of, for want of a better word, conventional televisions, computers, radios, and telephones by more advanced levels of these media, like flat-screen televisions and computers, is indicative of such an evolution, whereby it becomes less feasible to equate them with negativity and more attractive, by contrast, to allow for greater positivity or, at any rate, the possibility thereof.

7. Thus while we may still equate conventional (cathode-ray tube) television with materialism, it becomes possible to equate the more advanced types of television, including flat-screen digitals, with fundamentalism, as though in acknowledgement of a progression from inorganic primacy to organic supremacy within a predominantly or basically metachemical medium.

8. Likewise while we may still equate conventional VDU computers with idealism, it becomes possible to equate the more advanced types of computer, including flat-screen LCDs, with transcendentalism, as though in acknowledgement, once again, of a progression from the cosmic negativity of inorganic primacy to the universal positivity of organic supremacy within a predominantly metaphysical medium.

9. Similarly, while we may still prefer to equate conventional two-band radio with realism, it becomes possible to equate the more advanced types of radio, including FM digital, with nonconformism, as though in acknowledgement of a progression from inorganic primacy to organic supremacy within a basically chemical medium.

10. And while we may still prefer to equate conventional telephones with naturalism, it becomes possible to equate the more advanced types of phone, including mobiles, with humanism, as though in acknowledgement, once again, of a progression from the geologic negativity of inorganic primacy to the personal positivity of organic supremacy within a predominantly physical medium.

11. Doubtless similar progressions apply within the contexts of those related media like video recorders and/or players, cassette recorders and/or players, record-players, and compact-disc players and/or recorders, since progress can certainly be noted here that would seem to parallel what has been alluded to above.

12. Certainly the advancement of DVD at the expense of video and even conventional CD would seem to be a case in point, as would the longer-established advancement of cassettes, including micros, at the expense of tape-recorders and of CDs at the expense of records, meaning LPs and EPs and vinyl singles, with cassette-players superseding tape-recorders and CD-players superseding record-players.

13. Other examples, some of them quite distinct from the above, could doubtless be given, but I do not profess to any great expertise in these matters and would consider it a kind of soft-underbelly of my writings.

14. However, it is clear that, whatever the medium, be it primary or secondary, cosmic or geologic, universal or personal, public or private, advances have been made from a more conventional, and possibly inorganic, basis to what are now cutting-edge technologies which hold out the promise of greater positivity and organic compatibility for the future. In that respect, things can only get better!