On the Same Page
I was also scanning the book, and am I to understand it as American culture was more structurally industrialized in the 19th century, while British culture at that point was still more pre-industrialist (though one certainly could not argue that England wasn't touched by industrialism also at that time)?
The printing press was invented in 1440 and the first book printed was the Bible. And it was the Bible that settled America.
Americans did not have to get rid of an aural culture before establishing the Republic of Literacy.
While Britain for instance had an aural culture going back thousands of years and the Republic of Literacy was never established in Britain. And Britain remains an aural Monarchy.
And of course, here in the antipodes, we also remain an aural Monarchy trying to talk with the Republic of Literacy.
And so our conversation is replete with misunderstandings.
In an aural culture this is considered comical and amusing, while it is verboten in a literate culture where we are all expected to be on the same page.
So the literate are on the same page, while the aural are not even reading the book, never mind being on the same page. We are just giggling up our sleeve.
But the literate take themselves seriously and hate to be laughed at.
So we have the po-faced literate Puritans confronting the giggling Monarchists.