Evading The Issue FEBRUARY 01, 1984 by CLARENCE B. CARSON Dr.
Carson has written and taught extensively, specializing in
American intellectual history, He is the author of several
books, his most recent being Organized Against Whom? The Labor
Union In America. He is working st present on A Basic History of
the United States to be published by Western Goals, Inc. Reason
has not fared well in this century. This is the more strange
because never before have there been so many ways to convey
thought and ideas so swiftly and extensively to other people.
Before the 1840s, when the telegraph was invented, it was only
possible to convey ideas either in person or on paper, written
out by hand or printed and shipped at the same speed, more or
less, as other cargo. Now, ideas and pictures can be
communicated virtually instantaneously around the world via
satellites. This development is, if not the culmination, one of
the most re cent in a dazzling array of inventions and
discoveries for making words available or retriev