of course, is a different writing technology-the typewriter. So listen to what Heidegger has to say about the typewriter:
It is not by chance that modern man writes "with" the typewriter and "dictates"—the same word as "to invent creatively"—into the machine. This "history" of the kinds of writing is at the same time one of the major reasons for the increasing destruction of the word. The word no longer passes through the hand as it writes and acts authentically but through the mechanized pressure of the hand. The typewriter snatches script from the essential realm of the hand—and this means the hand is removed from the essential realm of the word. The word becomes something "typed." Nevertheless, mechanical script does have its own, limited importance where mechanized script serves as a mere transcription for preserving handwriting, or where typewritten script substitutes for "paring." When typewriters first became prevalent, a personal letter typed on a machine was regarded as a lapse of manners or as an insult. Today, handwritten letters slow down rapid reading and are therefore regarded as old-fashioned and undesirable. Mechanized writing deprives the hand of dignity in the realm of the written word and degrades the word to a mere means for the traffic of communication. Besides, mechanized writing offers the advantage of covering up one's handwriting and therewith one's character. In mechanized writing all human beings look the same.4
Again, my temptation is to turn satirical, but I will only comment that it is quite obvious to me that Heidegger never learned to type, else he would have eventually understood that the word "flows" through the keyboard onto the scripted page and even better with an electronic rather than mechanical keyboard. We do know that in correspondence, in spite of his critical comments about typewritten letters, that he sent such letters to some inquirers—John Caputo has one, as does my colleague, Peter Manchester. Elizabieta Ettinger hints that Elfride probably did this correspondence.5 And others have pointed out that the typed manuscript of Being and Time was produced by his brother.6 But I will return to this after a detour into a different but related technology.
In my attempts to try to show that one size cannot fit all, I often revert to musical instruments (technologies), which I believe do not fit well into the Bestand/Gestell essential reductions of Heidegger' s view of technologies. Indeed, woodwinds could be said to be somewhat like windmills, for they play only when the performer provides skilled and controlled "wind" or breath. So, here as my example, I draw from the work of Trevor Pinch
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