Has it ever occurred to you that we, alone of all the people who ever lived, can experience the sights and sounds of an earlier century? Radio, motion pictures, and television, all creatures of the last 100 years, have given us a time machine whose potential we are only beginning to understand. The people who lived in, say, the year 1632 had absolutely no way to sample the sights and sounds of 1532. And the Dark Ages will always remain dark, because there are no recordings or photos to illuminate them.
Much is made about the miracle of electronic communication, both point-to-point and broadcast. Radio, television, satellites, cell phones, – the electronic harvest is indeed bountiful. We generally measure these miracles in terms of speed or distance, reflecting how exciting it is to sit here in Maine and watch an Olympic event in Asia as it is happening. But there’s another dimension that may be even more important: time. I am not talking about Tivo-like devices that push programs around by days and weeks, but about time machines that can hop whole centuries – millennia, even.
Before the twentieth century, each generation left behind written notes and drawings to tell their descendants “what it was like.” Some even left detailed histories of their times, and for that we are in their debt. But today’s history is being written, not only by the writers, but much more broadly and accurately by cameramen working in every corner of the world. The advent of inexpensive digital photography is creating thousands of visual historians every day. With facilities like YouTube, soon we will all be leaving our footprints on the sands of time.
Would you like to watch and hear a videotaped greeting from one of your ancestors living in the 16th century? You can’t, but, if you choose, you can look your descendants in the eyes and tell them, in your own voice, what life was like in 2007. The prospect may not excite you, but you can be sure that it would excite someone in 2150.
Or you can share your appreciation of an artistic experience with past and future generations. Today, for instance, thanks to Thomas Edison and his fellow inventors, my children don’t have to take my word for it that Fred Astaire was an exceptional dancer; they can watch him dance. My Dad used to tell me that Al Jolson was the greatest entertainer of his time, and if I watch Jolson in one of his movies I am in effect watching him with my father, who saw the very same movie 75 years ago. In a sense, I can compress time, just as I compress space when I watch CNN’s live coverage of events in Iraq.
The depth of a person’s education is a function of the range of his or her awareness, measured in space and time. At some distance in miles and at some interval in years most people lose interest. That near-sightedness may have been understandable 100 years ago, but today, with the ability to view events around the world and far back in time, there is no reason why we should not let our minds take wing. .
I remember the dawn of television and how, while we all watched Milton Berle and Broadway Open House, some visionaries were touting the educational potential of the new medium. For TV’s first half century, the three major networks fed us entertainment, not education. Then came cable, and the game changed. For those who want nothing but sitcoms, they are still there. But for those who want more, there are the History Channel and PBS and Ovation and The Learning Channel. They and channels like them are your time machines. Take a ride.
