A Side Trip Through Moral Relativism

Works Cited

McGrath, Alister. “Unknown to the Ancients: The New Techonology.” The Story of the
King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture.
New York: Random House, 2001. Print. [Ch. 1., 5-23]

`Palmer, R.R. A History of the Modern World. 2^nd ed. Ed. Joel Colton. New York:

Knopf,1958. Print. [44] (My Contemporary Civilization college text from 1961.)

Printing and Literacy as a Pragmatic Capitalist Tool

This piece will be more of a digression than a discussion of literacy, its theories and models. Please understand that McGrath’s piece resonated in a way that has terrific significance to me.

Literacy comes in many guises, not the least of which being that which is triggered by that which we may have read. The course of our studies this semester rests on trying to define literacy, which we have already determined is a discussion that continues, perhaps ad nauseum. There are those who maintain the idea of literacy is the ability to read, write and reason in their native language. Added to this is the accepted notion, among many, that math skills are also part of the requirement for literacy. However, there are those, like Gardner, who posit the notion that there are multiple literacies or intelligences, including kinesthetic, musical, artistic, and others. Among these perhaps we should include business acumen and the idea of divining the truth, the ability to assay another’s character as it relates to our own well-being. Why do I bring this up?

I was taken aback by the discovery that, “Others grew rich through Gutenberg’s invention, while he went on to die in poverty in 1468” (McGrath,18). Prior to this defining revelation is McGrath’s exposition that Gutenberg “lacked business sense, and ended up losing a serious legal battle with his partner, Johann Fust… [who] promptly formed an immensely successful new partnership with Gutenberg’s former employee Peter Schoeffer” (18). What is evident is what is not stated. Business is as ruthless an endeavor as warfare except instead of hiring mercenaries at arms we hire mercenaries at law. What do we really know about the “serious legal battle?” Granted it was Fust’s money that bankrolled Gutenberg, but was Fust really happy with only his share, his stake in the outcome? What was their arrangement? Was it one in which whatever the stake the financier, the entrepreneur, provided was unsatisfactory? Was Fust merely a fat-cat? What do we know? Remember, history is written by the winners.

McGrath makes no secret about the quandary with which the church was confronted with the possibility of a printed bible. “The ecclesiastical establishment had a considerable vested interest in not allowing the laity access to the Bible. They might even discover that there was a massive discrepancy between the lifestyles of bishops and clergy and those commended – and practiced – by Christ and the apostles” (19). John Wycliffe, in England, with the potential of a translation of the Bible into English, threatened to destroy the whole edifice of clerical domination. “[T]he church…was staffed by mortal men who were no different from others. [It] faced the danger that besets every successful institution – a form of government, an army or navy, a business corporation, a labor union, a university, to choose modern examples – the danger of believing that the institution exists for the benefit of those who conduct its affairs” (Palmer, 44). Unrest with the status quo in England, and elsewhere, created the Peasants’ Revolt of June-July 1381 (the Wat Tyler Rebellion). The ascension of a merchant class created, in the likeness of the princes of the church, the Johann Fust’s, men who perhaps believed that the amassing of money and the ruthlessness in business necessary for success exists, as mentioned earlier, “for the benefit of those who conduct its affairs.” Institutions, like success in the printing business, lead mere mortals down a primrose path to…what, perdition? I don’t think they believed that…nor do they today. Look at the difficulty Congress is having passing a health care bill over the objections of the insurance corporations.

I realize this may have been off target, but literacy applies to all aspects of our lives, not just reading.