The Value Crisis: 2. We've Been Here Before

[printer sounds] Let's go a lot further back than 1891, all the way to 1440 and the arrival of the printing press.

Now, in one telling of this story, along came this incredible invention and the world followed its lead.

In 1440, Johannes Gutenberg built a machine in Mainz capable of mass producing text and images.

The world has never been the same again.

This one machine transformed everything from religion to science to how people learn to read.

But there's a risk with this story that we put the cart before the horse.

Some new technologies create demand, others meet a demand that's already there.

The printing press did both, and it's the second part of that equation that is sometimes overlooked.

By the time Gutenberg got to work, Europe had spent a century building up an enormous appetite for books.

One person was more responsible for this than most.

His name was Petrarch, a 14th century scholar living in a part of Italy where politics was mostly conducted through feuds.

Petrarch decided the problem wasn't the fighting itself, it was that nobody could remember what a serious ruler even looked like.

like.They were living in the plot of Romeo and Juliet for nine generations

This is Ada Palmer, associate professor of history at the University of Chicago

And they're very used to their ruling elites and their followers knifing each other in the street because the feud matters more than the city.

And Petrarch and others then read accounts of ancient Romans who sacrificed their lives for the state and thinking, "Wow, these people were really fit to rule.

These people were just and wise and cared about the good of their people."

Petrarch had made his diagnosis.

His solution wasn't the obvious one, not new laws, not a peace treaty.

His plan was to get people reading more

He suggested that if you want to show that you are a legitimate government and you know how to rule well, if we want to have good and competent leaders, we need to raise them on the education that produced Julius Caesar, that having classical education and the trappings of antiquity would demonstrate power, but also faithfulness to your state

Petrarch made his argument in letters, hundreds of them, written over decades, and slowly these letters built his reputation

Petrarch is a mega celebrity.

If a letter from Petrarch arrives in your city, that's more exciting than the most important rock band in the world touring through, right? His word is very influential, and suddenly people are, "Oh, if I want to be somebody important, I need the trappings of antiquity.

I need to have a portrait of myself done in profile looking like a emperor on a Roman coin, and I need to get a library and fill it with the books of antiquity so that I can demonstrate that I am giving this education to myself and those around me, and then I'll be seen as a legitimate ruler." So there's this big library-building boom, and lots of very, very wealthy elites are trying to assemble libraries quickly

[printer sounds] Let's go a lot further back than 1891, all the way to 1440 and the arrival of the printing press.

Now, in one telling of this story, along came this incredible invention and the world followed its lead.

In 1440, Johannes Gutenberg built a machine in Mainz capable of mass producing text and images.

The world has never been the same again.

This one machine transformed everything from religion to science to how people learn to read.

But there's a risk with this story that we put the cart before the horse.

Some new technologies create demand, others meet a demand that's already there.

The printing press did both, and it's the second part of that equation that is sometimes overlooked.

By the time Gutenberg got to work, Europe had spent a century building up an enormous appetite for books.

One person was more responsible for this than most.

His name was Petrarch, a 14th century scholar living in a part of Italy where politics was mostly conducted through feuds.

Petrarch decided the problem wasn't the fighting itself, it was that nobody could remember what a serious ruler even looked like.

like.They were living in the plot of Romeo and Juliet for nine generations

This is Ada Palmer, associate professor of history at the University of Chicago

And they're very used to their ruling elites and their followers knifing each other in the street because the feud matters more than the city.

And Petrarch and others then read accounts of ancient Romans who sacrificed their lives for the state and thinking, "Wow, these people were really fit to rule.

These people were just and wise and cared about the good of their people."

Petrarch had made his diagnosis.

His solution wasn't the obvious one, not new laws, not a peace treaty.

His plan was to get people reading more

He suggested that if you want to show that you are a legitimate government and you know how to rule well, if we want to have good and competent leaders, we need to raise them on the education that produced Julius Caesar, that having classical education and the trappings of antiquity would demonstrate power, but also faithfulness to your state

Petrarch made his argument in letters, hundreds of them, written over decades, and slowly these letters built his reputation

Petrarch is a mega celebrity.

If a letter from Petrarch arrives in your city, that's more exciting than the most important rock band in the world touring through, right? His word is very influential, and suddenly people are, "Oh, if I want to be somebody important, I need the trappings of antiquity.

I need to have a portrait of myself done in profile looking like a emperor on a Roman coin, and I need to get a library and fill it with the books of antiquity so that I can demonstrate that I am giving this education to myself and those around me, and then I'll be seen as a legitimate ruler." So there's this big library-building boom, and lots of very, very wealthy elites are trying to assemble libraries quickly