1.16 Elizabeth Eisenstein Part 2: Stereotypes and Clichés, Recovery and Discovery, Viewing the Past From a Fixed Distance, and Much More

Dilettantery

“Medieval scholars did not see the classical past from a fixed distance as we do now. They did not regard it as a container of objects to be placed in glass cases and investigated by specialists in diverse scholarly fields.”

-Elizabeth Eisenstein

"Given drifting texts, migrating manuscripts, localized chronologies, multiform maps, there could be no systematic forward movement, no accumulation of stepping stones enabling a new generation to begin where the prior one had left off. Progressive refinement of certain arts a skills could and did occur, but no sophisticated technique could be securely established, permanently recorded, and stored for subsequent retrieval. Before trying to account for an ‘idea’ of progress we might look more closely at the duplicating process that made possible not only a sequence of improved editions but also a continuous accumulation of fixed records. For it seems to have been permanence that introduced progressive change, The preservation fo the old, in brief, launched a tradition of the new."

-Elizabeth Eisenstein

Sources: https://old.reddit.com/r/DilettanteryPodcast/comments/ned9qi/116_elizabeth_eisenstein_part_2_stereotypes_and/?