A Whole New (Brave) World

Ad Fontes: I like what Isaac said about people quoting Founding Fathers and similar figures to have a stronger ethos. I think that we often appeal to the older generations to validate our opinions.  Especially in a digital age, where so many young voices are now clamoring for attention, using quotes from the Internet that come from an authority figure can make your point really stand out.  Then again, often people misattribute quotes and get away with it because no one is willing to do the research required to verify or reject what Abraham Lincoln really said in the Gettysburg Address.

Brave New World: "Space: the final frontier."  While the imaginations of young men and women across America were sparked by those iconic words, the real frontiers could be closer to home than we think.  Through the powers of digital modeling and graphics, many projects are currently underway to map famous landmarks throughout the world and provide a digital tour of these lands, now expanding our participation in different worlds.  Through the power of the digital age, I can stroll through ruins in Greece and a re-creation of the temple in Jerusalem.  

What a Piece of Work is Man: Indeed, and the more and more we get to know humanity, the more and more polarizing it seems to be.  Although the humanists lauded the ability of the human to grow and adapt throughout their lives, we are now seeing a startling contrast between the incredibly stupid and inept and the incredibly talented and driven.  While the stories of success in the teeth of failure inspire us, we laugh at the tales of human who should probably win a Darwin Award.  How would the humanists even feel about a Darwin Award?

Ploughboys and Bibles: Forget about accessibility; everyone on the planet who has a smartphone also has a bible.  Or maybe I should say a couple hundred bibles.  There are so many different versions of the bible in our digital age that now, the issue is not not having a bible, it's not being able to decide which one to read.  Interestingly this could cause a decrease in bible study as more and more people are put off by the division of Christian thought and turn instead to easier Atheism or Agnosticism.  

Typographia Conservatrix: Print has long been a way to insure that only the best (or what the intellectually elite call the best) is released in a big way to the general public, but that is no longer true.  The big question now is how to determine what is of worth and what is not in an age when anyone and everyone can post/publish on the internet.  This will hopefully lead to a generally more discerning public who will have to be required to determine on the merits of the work its worth.  

Sprezzatura: Swag was mentioned in another post, and I think that it is relevant to a point.  The ever-shifting sands of what is popular and what is not is a form of sprezzatura, and could be more important than we think.  For example, for a large proportion of the population that is over 18 but not yet discerning of political ideologies, the "swag" or sprezzatura of a presidential candidate could be the motivating factor to vote for them.  Certainly the channels of mass media are flooded not with the concrete political opinions of candidates, but rather with the manner in which they appear to speak or act.