Tidskrift för lärarutbildning och forskning 4/2005

Literature as Exploration
that Mark Twain’s remark certainly implies that
we already see these efforts, we see how often
people print out everything from their technologies.
At least I have found myself doing that but
that perhaps because I am so dependent on the
printed word. But I have a feeling we are maybe
foreseeing the death of the book too soon.
However, I would not be very pessimistic if
the whole way of technology of reading should
change. Technology communication could
change. Because the things I have been talking
about are much more basic and would imply that
I can not see my theory would have been much
more different whether the meaning is being
derived through one technological means or
another. It is only a tool and, as we say about science,
it is how you use it that is important. And,
of course, that is the point at which my theory
and my whole view of democracy enters.
So it is a question then as I see it: What is going
to happen to the societies What are the values
in societies If we have a more emphasis on
the mechanical or the material on fashion and
industrial methods and less and less emphasis
on human values on the value of the individual.
What is the point I would then start to be pessimistic.
It is not a question of the technology,
rather it is a question of what are the values that
are being communicated and are being developed
through the communication process that
would enable people to use these new techniques
constructively and for the improvement
of life and the attainment of each individual
follower’s possible fulfillment. So it is then
always a question of optimism or pessimism
in terms of these broader views rather than the
narrower ones.
Q: What is your opinion about the post-modern
rhetoric assertion that the difference between
the media culture on the one hand and the
canon literature on the other has been wiped
out in our modern society
LMR: I think again we are encountering dualistic
thinking, because it is clear that there are
many elements in what is called “canon”, for
instance, in any one society that represent a kind
of line calling on the past, works that are no
longer very important or meaningful to people
living in the present day world. On the other
hand, I think it is just as absurd to say that we
should just hold on to the canon because it has
been so helpful to us in the past and it is just as
absurd to reject that canon and say that, well
this is an old author and we should just start
afresh instead of reading that.
61