Edison Versus Jobs
by Krishna Andavolu
OCTOBER 7, 2011 TAGS:
Revisiting Thomas Edison's New York Times obit from 1931 presents a revealing exercise in historical parallax. Steve Jobs' death has reawakened the ghosts of America's brightest and most innovative creators. Edison, Henry Ford, Eli Whitney the Wright Brothers. But does his name, lo the inventor of the personal computer, deserve mention in that number?
Edison's obituary starts with understated grandiosity. It was published in 1931, a time when elegiac writing was often over embellished. But the obit (written by business reporter Bruce Rae) rarely slips into mawkishness, which makes Edison's accomplishment all the more stunning. It starts:
Thomas Alva Edison made the world a better place in which to live and brought comparative luxury into the life of the workingman. No one in the long roll of those who have benefited humanity has done more to make existence easy and comfortable. Through his invention of electric light he gave the world a new brilliance; when the cylinder of his first phonograph recorded sound he put the great music of the ages within reach of every one; when he invented the motion picture it was a gift to mankind of a new theatre, a new form of amusement. His inventions gave work as well as light and recreation to millions.
His inventive genius brooded over a world which at nightfall was engulfed in darkness, pierced only by the feeble beams of kerosene lamps, by gas lights or, in some of the larger cities, by the uncertainties of the old-time arc lights. To Edison, with the dream of the incandescent lamp in his mind, it seemed that people still lived in the Dark Ages. But his ferreting fingers groped in the darkness until they evoked the glow that told him the incandescent lamp was a success, and that light for all had been achieved.
Edison establishes a high standard. Bringing humanity from darkness to light has a distinct metaphoric value, one that hardly any less-than promethean invention could top. But how about the personal computer. How does that stack up? Does it offer the democratic upliftment of "the working man?"
Yes. It did. But a more precise question would be: are the revolutionary devices of the 21st century Steve Jobs (the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad) humanity lifters too?
Scott TImberg wrote a compelling lamentation for the "creative class" -- the so-called laptop army of professionals who might have formed the basis for a new kind of American economy -- at Salon.com days before Jobs' death. The U.S. can no longer lead in manufacturing, but we could lead in creation, the thinking went. We could create ideas powered by our infrastructural advantage of personal computing and our educational advantage of fostering independent thought. When Steve Jobs described his position as being at the crossroads of technology and the liberal arts, he was speaking to this exact formulation of a new American exceptionalism.
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That dream is dead, Timberg argues.
So where does that leave the Jobs versus Edison comparison? Sure MacBooks and ipads are amazing. I use them all the time. But do they still inspire the democratic ideals expressed in Edison's obit? There is always hope, even if the ipad is really just a seductively designed consumption machine. For instance, an Indian manufacturer just created a $35 tablet computer and social media has been helped spur real revolutions. It's still an open question.
What might be a more haunting parallel between Jobs and Edison are the years in which they died. In 1931, the Empire State Building was completed and a banking crisis in Central Europe threatened to sink an already weakened economy. As the Occupy Wall Street movement entrenches itself blocks away from a nearly erected Freedom Tower, and Europe's central banks again strain at the seams, it's difficult not to feel the eerie chill of history's cycles.
Monumental individuals guide historical action, especially those who make new tools. And our tools might distinguish our species from the rest, but they are still only a small part of who we are.
Edison's obit ends:
Thus he permitted others to carry on his pioneering in this fertile field, but it is because of his early discoveries that America leads the world in screen effects, and that the penny arcade, with its shooting gallery and knockout fight films, has yielded to the cathedrals of the screen. Also, because of Edison, it is possible for the natives of Kamchatka to sit impassively, row upon row, and see how the high school champion diving team of Rural Centre, Ill., put on a water carnival and raised money to pay the church mortgage. And vice versa, for the students of Rural Centre to see what the well-controlled native of Bengal does when a hungry tiger charges him. Edison did more than light the lamp at Menlo Park.
Read the entire obituary here
Edison's obituary starts with understated grandiosity. It was published in 1931, a time when elegiac writing was often over embellished. But the obit (written by business reporter Bruce Rae) rarely slips into mawkishness, which makes Edison's accomplishment all the more stunning. It starts:Thomas Alva Edison made the world a better place in which to live and brought comparative luxury into the life of the workingman. No one in the long roll of those who have benefited humanity has done more to make existence easy and comfortable. Through his invention of electric light he gave the world a new brilliance; when the cylinder of his first phonograph recorded sound he put the great music of the ages within reach of every one; when he invented the motion picture it was a gift to mankind of a new theatre, a new form of amusement. His inventions gave work as well as light and recreation to millions.
His inventive genius brooded over a world which at nightfall was engulfed in darkness, pierced only by the feeble beams of kerosene lamps, by gas lights or, in some of the larger cities, by the uncertainties of the old-time arc lights. To Edison, with the dream of the incandescent lamp in his mind, it seemed that people still lived in the Dark Ages. But his ferreting fingers groped in the darkness until they evoked the glow that told him the incandescent lamp was a success, and that light for all had been achieved.
Edison establishes a high standard. Bringing humanity from darkness to light has a distinct metaphoric value, one that hardly any less-than promethean invention could top. But how about the personal computer. How does that stack up? Does it offer the democratic upliftment of "the working man?"
Yes. It did. But a more precise question would be: are the revolutionary devices of the 21st century Steve Jobs (the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad) humanity lifters too?
Scott TImberg wrote a compelling lamentation for the "creative class" -- the so-called laptop army of professionals who might have formed the basis for a new kind of American economy -- at Salon.com days before Jobs' death. The U.S. can no longer lead in manufacturing, but we could lead in creation, the thinking went. We could create ideas powered by our infrastructural advantage of personal computing and our educational advantage of fostering independent thought. When Steve Jobs described his position as being at the crossroads of technology and the liberal arts, he was speaking to this exact formulation of a new American exceptionalism.
That dream is dead, Timberg argues.So where does that leave the Jobs versus Edison comparison? Sure MacBooks and ipads are amazing. I use them all the time. But do they still inspire the democratic ideals expressed in Edison's obit? There is always hope, even if the ipad is really just a seductively designed consumption machine. For instance, an Indian manufacturer just created a $35 tablet computer and social media has been helped spur real revolutions. It's still an open question.
What might be a more haunting parallel between Jobs and Edison are the years in which they died. In 1931, the Empire State Building was completed and a banking crisis in Central Europe threatened to sink an already weakened economy. As the Occupy Wall Street movement entrenches itself blocks away from a nearly erected Freedom Tower, and Europe's central banks again strain at the seams, it's difficult not to feel the eerie chill of history's cycles.
Monumental individuals guide historical action, especially those who make new tools. And our tools might distinguish our species from the rest, but they are still only a small part of who we are.
Edison's obit ends:
Thus he permitted others to carry on his pioneering in this fertile field, but it is because of his early discoveries that America leads the world in screen effects, and that the penny arcade, with its shooting gallery and knockout fight films, has yielded to the cathedrals of the screen. Also, because of Edison, it is possible for the natives of Kamchatka to sit impassively, row upon row, and see how the high school champion diving team of Rural Centre, Ill., put on a water carnival and raised money to pay the church mortgage. And vice versa, for the students of Rural Centre to see what the well-controlled native of Bengal does when a hungry tiger charges him. Edison did more than light the lamp at Menlo Park.
Read the entire obituary here
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