But in a commercially driven culture, stories of the third kind pay for most of the first two. That creates a coherent cultural environment whose overall function is to provide a hospitable and effective context for stories that sell. With the coming of the electronic age, that cultural environment is increasingly monopolized, homogenized, and globalized. A community was defined by the rituals, mythologies and imageries held in common. All useful knowledge is encapsulated in aphorisms and legends, proverbs and tales, incantations and ceremonies.
Writing is rare and holy, forbidden for slaves.
Laboriously inscribed manuscripts confer sacred power to their interpreters, the priests and ministers. Those who noisily turn the pages of illustrated manuscripts. State and church ruled the Middle Ages in a symbiotic relationship of mutual dependence and tension. T he industrial revolution changed all that. One of the first machines stamping out standardized artifacts was the printing press.