Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.
Walter BenjaminRead
The illiterate of the future will not be the man who cannot read the alphabet, but the one who cannot take a photograph.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True literacy in the modern world involves visual communication and media skills rather than just reading and writing.
Walter Benjamin's quote suggests that in the future, conventional literacy, defined by the ability to read and write, will be overshadowed by the need for visual literacy. This means that the ability to effectively communicate and interpret images, which include photographs and visual media, will be essential for engagement and understanding in an increasingly image-saturated society.
Themes
LiteracyPhotographCommunicationMediaVisual
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about the importance of visual media in education.
More from Walter Benjamin
All quotes →If mythic violence is lawmaking, divine violence is law-destroying; if the former sets boundaries, the latter boundlessly destroys them; if mythic violence brings at once guilt and retribution, divine power only expiates; if the former threatens, the latter strikes; if the former is bloody, the latter is lethal without spilling blood
Walter BenjaminRead
Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.
Walter BenjaminRead
Nothing is poorer than a truth expressed as it was thought. Committed to writing in such cases, it is not even a bad photograph. Truth wants to be startled abruptly, at one stroke, from her self-immersion, whether by uproar, music or cries for help.
Walter BenjaminRead
I am unpacking my library. Yes I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order.
Walter BenjaminRead
How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books!
Walter BenjaminRead
Similar quotes
A newspaper is complete. It is finished, sure of itself, certain. By contrast, digital news is constantly updated, improved upon, changed, moved, developed - an ongoing conversation and collaboration. It is living, evolving, limitless, relentless.
Katharine VinerRead
Computers bootstrap their own offspring, grow so wise and incomprehensible that their communiqués assume the hallmarks of dementia: unfocused and irrelevant to the barely-intelligent creatures left behind. And when your surpassing creations find the answers you asked for, you can't understand their analysis and you can't verify their answers. You have to take their word on faith.
Peter WattsRead
Connectivity enables transparency for better government, education, and health.
Bill GatesRead
We used to have lots of questions to which there were no answers. Now, with the computer, there are lots of answers to which we haven't thought up questions.
Peter UstinovRead
Why commit technological suicide by restricting the flow of talent into the United States?
Michio KakuRead
An awful lot of successful technology companies ended up being in a slightly different market than they started out in. Microsoft started with programming tools, but came out with an operating system. Oracle started doing contracts for the CIA. AOL started out as an online video gaming network.
Marc AndreessenRead