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chapter 2 The Profits of Reform: Printers, Capitalists, and the Priesthood of Believers Soon after Martin Luther posted his ninety-five treatises on the church door in Wittenberg, Germany, in 1517, he was surprised to discover that he had become, in modern parlance, a best-selling writer. In a matter of days, his message had been translated and reprinted on the newly invented printing press in such towns as Nuremberg, Leipzig, and Basel, and it had circulated so widely that,in the words of the media historian Elizabeth Eisenstein,it had “won top billing throughout central Europe—competing for space with news of the Turkish threat in print shop, bookstall, and country fair.”1 Luther was the first—but certainly not the last—to experience a deep historical irony inherent in the invention of the printing press. The printing press could serve as an instrument of the highest religious purposes; in his case, it helped spread the potent ideas that fomented the Protestant Reformation. But it could just as easily be exploited as an instrument of commercial gain—as the printers of his time were quick to capitalize on. Luther expressed his own consternation at this phenomenon: “It is a mystery to me how my theses, more so than my other writings . . . were spread to so many places. They were meant exclusively for our academic circle here. . . . They were written in such a language that the common people could hardly understand them.”2 As happened during the time of Jesus and Paul, when writing transformed the oral cultures of Europe and the Mediterranean, the invention of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century was a pivotal historical event that helped reshape the religious landscape of the Western world. The connection between printing and Protestantism made Luther, the one-time priest whose belief in salvation through faith and the supremacy of the Bible as the guide to faith rocked the Catholic world, and Johann Gutenberg, the German businessman 02.33-46/Unde 1/15/02, 9:40 AM 33 34 from yahweh to yahoo! who is credited as the inventor of the printing press in Europe, cultural heroes of their time and two of the most significant figures in Western history. But it also put Luther in the awkward position of complaining about the corruption of Catholic practices and accusing the church of becoming too focused on wealth and property, while his own supporters were making money off the sale of his writings. A large body of historical literature has grown up that links the invention of printing, the rise of Protestantism, and the emergence of the capitalist spirit as the driving elements in the creation of our modern commercial culture. Even more so than Luther’s writings, the doctrines of John Calvin, the Swiss theocrat who exercised great influence on Protestants in England and Scotland, are identified with what has come to be called the Protestant ethic and its intertwining of piety and spiritual zeal with the elevation of material success as the surest possible sign of salvation. Enlightenment skepticism, the rise of science, and the substitution of colloquial languages for Latin contributed to the weakening of the religious role that once monopolized the uses of writing. But the commercial pressures that were unleashed with the invention of printing were enormous, and they did much to undermine the original religious purpose of the employment of the printed word and to turn the venture toward commercialism and profit making. Today, the religious aspect of writing and mass communications remains,but it is submerged beneath deep currents of commercialism and layered below material goals and values. From St. Thomas Aquinas, who used writing to try to reconcile reason with the ways of God,to Luther,whose writings inspired widespread religious revolt,to Benjamin Franklin,who blended Calvinistic notions of thrift with great business success in the early American journalism industry,to James Gordon Bennett, who saw journalism as a superior moral mission that nonetheless should never stand in the way of making lots of money, to Gannett’s Al Neuharth,the wealthy modern media mogul whose interest in religion has been largely to mock it, the transformation of the role of writing and communications from a religious to a commercial one has been profound. Yet, for anyone who looks deeply enough, the religious origins of writing and mass communications still can be found resonating powerfully within the commercial impulses of the media industry, particularly among journalism professionals...

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