What would happen if words stopped holding significance in the world, and images took their place as force? Well, people would stop reading, except to get that retro, non-conformist effect. The same effect that makes teenagers play records on their parents’ old record players that they dust off and drag from the garage into their bedrooms.
People would stop reading the news and would only see the news. (This has begun to happen.) Images of cars exploding and mothers with dark eyes, crying, would tell all we need to know. In some ways interpreting things for oneself is better than being fed a pre-interpreted story by other people’s words. The problem is when we are shown a tiny fragment of the situation and then have to try and interpret our way into its reality. Footage exists to replace live experience. But if it offers a narrow view of an event, accurate understanding is not possible. We run the risk of being led to believe the belief of the footage-taker (or their editor). In this way, image is more powerful than word because the viewer is unaware that they are being led to the conclusion about what they are seeing. It’s manipulative. And it would lead to a similar-minded society (wherever the same images are being projected) without their being aware of the reasons for their ideas.
Relying on images for information rather than people’s words could be liberating; it would mean not relying on ‘the expert’ for their opinion anymore. But some people know more than others about certain things, and so we’d loose out on legitimate expertise if we did away with all authoritative force. And words, because they leave more to the imagination that images, require a level of involvement from the reader. They allow for and encourage thought on the part of the reader as well. Even the strongest one-sided text (early Marx comes to mind), provokes other thoughts, critiques, expansions. Images hold the beginning and end of themselves, in themselves.[1] They do not provoke critique, because what one sees is what is. A video or photograph of a car exploding is a car exploding. And when one sees an image of a car exploding they have an immediate emotional reaction. Seeing this does not provide time to sit back and think about the reasons or the person who made this happen or anything else. All the viewer can think about is that a car with a person in it just exploded and that is bad. Text on the other hand, while having the ability to evoke strong emotional reactions, and lasting ones, does not have such an immediate response time. It allows the reader to take time to digest the words, and analyze them. When a person sees an image that they have an immediate emotional reaction to, they are more likely to have a knee-jerk reaction to it and act in a way that is not fully thought out. There is more chance (not that it is by any means a sure thing) that someone who reads about something will analyze and critique what they read, providing a chance for a more level-headed response.
So what would happen if word were overtaken by image? The world would be less thoughtful, would criticize the information they were given less, and would have less perspective. Lets keep reading.
[1] I am not writing about artistic images, such as paintings or sketches; these forms do allow for and encourage involvement. The images I have in mind are those of TV news.
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