The Price of Thought
Throughout history, there have been thinkers, philosophers, and inventors who radically changed the course of human development. They were all workers of the mind, idealists. Not through war, not through destruction, not through tyranny; some served humanity through invention, some through art, and some by wielding the power of words, almost as if they had forgotten themselves. Yet in every age, without exception, there was something they received in return. Sometimes it came as persecution, sometimes as hatred, sometimes as imprisonment; branded as subversives, they saw their lives squandered away.
These are the idealists to whom we owe the world of today.
Their only crime was to think.
Among them were the pioneers of thought who sought to reunite theological thinking with modern philosophy in the Middle Ages. The pioneers and writers who fought for democracy in the nineteenth century were of the same kind; so too, in the years that followed, were those across the world who kept this struggle apart from personal gain and devoted their lives to it.
The New Age Opened by Machines
Then capitalism came, bearing down with all its force; technology followed. Words and art began to be produced not by human insight, but by machines. The breaking of this natural order was ushering in another age.
From depth of thought to shallowness of thought.
There will be two possible outcomes: either mighty capitalism will once again place itself in the hands of the world of dream and thought, yielding its place to words, or words will lose their function in the mind and drift away in the visual current.
Which will it be?
Powers Thought Invincible
To some, capitalism is an invincible force and technology an unbending pillar. Yet we must remember that invincible rulers, invincible kings, and magnificent dynasties once believed to possess divine power have also tasted defeat and been crushed in the turning wheels of change.
What force can defeat capitalism today?
I believe it will once again be the power of words. There are three reasons.
The Return of Words
First, there is history's own pattern. The idealists I mentioned at the beginning of this essay also appeared defeated in their own time; they suffered persecution, were abandoned to oblivion, and were branded as subversives. And yet we owe the present to them. Suppressed thought may not be vindicated at once, but sooner or later it is. The words of today may also appear buried beneath algorithmic noise; that does not mean they have lost. It means only that they are waiting for their turn.
Second, saturation has a limit of its own. The visual current may produce endlessly, but it is shallow; even a flood of content that forever gleams, forever changes, and never comes to rest has a point of saturation. As abundance grows, depth becomes rarer, and what is rare regains its worth. It is no coincidence that long-form writing, books, and genuine conversation are being sought again today.
Third, and perhaps most fundamental of all: the foundation beneath the visual wave is still made of words. Even the machines that produce the images enchanting people today think through language, learn through language, and are built through language. Words have not disappeared; they have gone beneath the soil.
Culture and popular culture are in conflict. Popular culture may seem to have prevailed today; we must not let that mislead us.
The roots are beneath the soil.
As the soil brings forth the flowers of spring, it can bring forth words at any moment. As long as the world of dream and thought endures, and as long as idealists endure, hope is not extinguished. The flavour of words is not lost.
The power is not yet spent.
All of this is nothing more than a contradiction, a period of stumbling, and the birth pains of a transition. “A world wrapped in excessively dazzling images, presenting itself as a permanent victory, seems to have won for the moment—but only for the moment. That is all.”