That Marvel—The Movie: A Glance at Its Past, Its Promising Present and Its Significant FutureVan Zile, Edward S. (Edward Sims)
History
That Marvel—The Movie: A Glance at Its Past, Its Promising Present and Its Significant Future
Van Zile, Edward S. (Edward Sims)
Motion pictures
Whatever may be one’s attitude toward the League of Nations, the
advocacy of “the moral unity of the world” by that organization must
meet with approval by the vast majority of right-thinking men. Through
moral unification only can the human race reach that plane of
civilization upon which freedom from the major ills which now afflict it
can be attained. And that the Esperanto of the Tongue, a universal
language that is rapidly enlarging the scope of its influence, can
perform a mighty service in the cause of peace and progress can not be
doubted. But compared to the Esperanto of the Eye, the universal
language sprung from the screen, its conquest of the earth is painfully
slow, and its final complete triumph would still leave the
world-language of the eye more potent in many ways than the
world-language of the tongue.
To illustrate the above, let me quote again from Mr. Mumford, who, in
discussing the benefits bestowed by Esperanto upon commerce, says: “In
Esperanto a business concern can get out a circular setting forth the
merits of a washing machine or a face lotion so that even an Eskimo
woman can read it, provided she has taken six months lessons in the
universal language.” But in the twinkling of an eye this Eskimo woman
could learn from the screen what it might take her half a year to glean
from the advertising circular. Furthermore, for many years to come, the
Eskimos, not to speak of the more highly civilized races, are more
likely to be in constant touch with the Esperanto of the Screen than
with the Esperanto of the Printing-Press.
Of course, what men or nations say to each other is essentially more
important than the vehicle which they use for saying it. Neither the
Esperanto of the Tongue nor of the Eye can be of great service to the
cause of civilization unless they disseminate enlightenment rather than
confusion, good rather than evil, love rather than hatred, unless they
tighten rather than loosen the bonds that hold the nations together in
times of peace.
But what Man may do ultimately with his new media for world-wide
intercommunication can be, at this juncture, only a matter for vague,
though, perhaps, hopeful, conjecture. There is one fact, however, that
stands out in startling significance as we contemplate the progress
which mankind is making toward the final removal of all barriers toward
racial self-knowledge—namely, that humanity seems, for the first time in
its career, to feel that the Sphinx whose other name is History is
presently to reveal the secret which, throughout all the ages, it has
managed to conceal. The disappearance of the last frontier, the solving
of Earth’s ancient mysteries, the coming of the wireless and the
Esperanto of the Tongue and of the Eye seem to presage some new
revelation to the soul of Man that shall remove forever from the
entrance to the Garden of Eden that angel with the flaming sword.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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