First of all, I apologize for my previous snarky post. I am writing a paper comparing the transition from orality to literacy to the transition from literacy to electracy, and I got emotionally frustrated. I’m finding it difficult to compare the two transitions because the transition to electracy is still in progress. When I looked at your table I was aggravated by how bleak the electracy column seemed. The apparati in the literacy column look like they have so much more depth than the apparati you associate with electracy. However, from reading your book Internet Invention in more depth, and from speaking with my professor, I feel reassured that you are not arguing that electracy is making our minds shallow and our lives meaningless. The question, then, that I would like to ask you is, how can we manipulate the changes in our apparati (for example the change from a state of mind of knowledge to one of fantasy) to expand our consciousness rather than contract it. I understand that this is essentially the question that you wrote an entire book trying to answer, and I hope that I’m not being unrealistic by asking for a straight-forward answer – I’m just having difficulty wrapping my mind around how the apparati in the electracy column can possibly be positive for our existence as human beings.

My first question is, with such overlap between these three categories, what is the point of making this table? Obviously there was still a strong institution of the church during the “era” of literacy, and there is still a strong academic institution in this era of electracy. You happen to be a part of it. Also, you seem to be simplifying the electracy column into contemporary “American culture.” Entertainment, internet, fantasy, play, aesthetics, body, figure… sounds like a bitter baby boomer, am I wrong?