Relationships & Reality – Article 7

Thesis

The printing press changed not primarily the content of human communication, but its scale.
Through the reproduction of texts, a massive simultaneity of references and a synchronization of thinking emerged,
creating order—while simultaneously intensifying comparison, standardization, and pressure to conform.

For real partner formation, one point remained decisive: resonance mechanisms continued to operate biologically and socially—
independent of the media dissemination of ideals.

Temporal framing

• Beginning: around 1450 (Johannes Gutenberg)
• Reach: Europe → global
• Phase: ca. 1450–1700 (early modern period)
• World population: ca. 450–600 million

In this period, communication becomes reproducible at scale—triggering structural consequences for order and comparability.

1. What changed through the printing press

Before the printing press, knowledge was local, slow, and physically bound (oral transmission, hand copying).
With print, texts become identically reproducible and independent of place and time—knowledge becomes depersonalized.

The system begins to synchronize not persons, but texts.

2. Synchronization on a new level

Print created shared references (“everyone reads the same”), standardized terms, and common spaces of thought.
Structural accelerators followed: the Reformation, scientific methodology, national identities.

Synchronization shifted from bodies to symbols.

3. Order through multiplication—at what price?

Open systems respond to rising synchronization with increased order, reduced variance, and heightened comparability.
Texts produced norms, standards, and “correct” viewpoints.

The system gained stability—while losing local adaptability.

4. The emergence of standardized ideals

With the standardization of texts came the standardization of knowledge, morality, and—over the long term—perception.
What was previously diverse became comparable.

This affects thinking, belief, and later also: beauty, role models, expectations.

5. Why partner formation was only limitedly affected

The printing press operated cognitively.
Partner formation, however, operates primarily through perception, emotion, and social embedding—and is statistically also structured genetically.

Texts could shape expectations, describe ideals, and reinforce role models—but they could not create resonance where it is not biologically and socially present.

6. Comparison increases—resonance remains local

With printed texts, comparison, norm pressure, and cognitive orientation increase.
Resonance remains bound to real encounter: proximity, repetition, similarity.

Texts change expectations—not coupling.

7. Transition to the next escalation stage

The printing press created order through unification—slow, reflective, temporally extended.
The next stage would become faster, more emotional, and more immediate.

What happens when not texts, but images and feelings are synchronized at mass scale?

→ Article 8: Media, beauty, and overlay—why real partner formation persists

Core terms (5)

• Mass synchronization
• Standardization
• Comparison dynamics
• Symbolic order
• Resonance boundaries

SEO Keywords (EN)

Sources (selection)

• McLuhan, M.: The Gutenberg Galaxy
• Eisenstein, E.: The Printing Press as an Agent of Change
• Luhmann, N.: Social Systems / The Society of Society
• Ong, W.: Orality and Literacy
• Henrich, J.: The Secret of Our Success