> Aristotle thought.. democracy implied that a person standing in the center of a city could, when giving an oration, be heard by all the citizens. Considering.. that there were no amplification devices, one might think this unrealistic. However, #BenjaminFranklin actually tested the idea (although for different reasons) in trying to determine exactly how far and by how many people the voice of the great orator #ReverendWhitefield could be heard.
#NeilPostman #BridgeToEighteenthCentury

> Orwell took Shaw’s remark to heart and examined carefully his own reasons for believing the world to be round... Shaw was right: that most of his scientific beliefs rested solely on the authority of scientists. In other words, most students have no idea why Copernicus is to be preferred over Ptolemy...
#NeilPostman in #BridgeToEighteenthCentury
#OrwellAndShaw #GeorgeOrwell #BernardShaw

> Scholars have searched as far back as biblical times and the fifth century B.C. to find evidence of a general notion of the continuous improvement of human life on earth, and have been hard put to find any. Mind you, we are not talking here about a concept of “better.” All peoples have notions of improvement, of superior/inferior.
#NeilPostman on #ProgressTheory in book, #BridgeToEighteenthCentury