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orincoro t1_j5kavus wrote

People did not say that the printing press would make society worse. You’re full of shit.

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get-azureaduser t1_j5o9fsi wrote

The clergy most definitely did. There was a reason why church was only done in Latin (which no one even spoke) and books were hand scribed by monks in the church by hand (ergo one monks translation and understanding of the transcript varied from parish to parish). Literacy was seen as a blessing by the elite and God and only those in the church were of status to read. All social life, class, and ways of life was dictated by the clergy’s interpretation of the Bible because they had the only copy. You were not allowed to have any foreign thought or independent interpretation of what the Bible was because well you’d technically had never seen it. There was no coincidence that the first book ever mass printed by Gutenberg was the Bible. When the commoners had the ability to own a book they were now able to access the Bible in their own language. Clergy was outraged. Translators, printers, owners of a Bible, those wanting to share what they’ve learned, were now targeted by the Church Inquisitors. Many were arrested, burned at the stake, roasted on spits, sentenced to life in prison, or sent to the galleys. Men and women gave up their lives for the sake of reading the Bible in their own language. In 1559 Pope Paul IV forbade the ownership of any translations in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish (and some Latin!). The inciting of mobs (another tactic carried into the 20 C.), unsuspecting people who didn’t have the faintest idea of the real motives, to carry out the work of stamping out “heretics” - first individuals, then entire towns and villages, spreading to all-out war between nations, the deposing and manipulation of kings and queens. Bibles were now being burned by the thousands, a practice actually carried on until the 20th century.

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orincoro t1_j5ocrmk wrote

Ah, so the people who stood directly the lose power because of the press said it was evil? Color me fucking shocked. Is that the best you’ve got?

This invention is not empowering common people like the press did. It empowers the already powerful to accumulate yet more power. Show me how it’s anything else.

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