The Unplanned Obsolescence of Writing, THE MISCOMMUNICATION TRILOGY, “The Tower of Babble, Vol. III”, Part 19

The Unplanned Obsolescence of Writing The Unplanned Obsolescence of Writing is the nineteenth volume of The Tower of Babble, the third part of The Miscommunication Trilogy, an ambitious exploration of one of the defining yet largely invisible forces shaping human civilization: the planned obsolescence of language. While previous volumes examined the instability of meaning, the corruption of communication, the politics of speech, the transformation of language through technology, and the growing fragmentation of discourse, this book turns its attention to the broader phenomenon of obsolescence itself and its profound relationship to writing, memory, and cultural survival. At first sight, the title may appear to suggest a study of the decline of writing in the digital age. Yet the book pursues a far more expansive inquiry. Drawing on examples from technology, architecture, consumer culture, biology, economics, psychology, education, politics, and global institutions, it investigates how societies continually produce mechanisms of replacement, renewal, disappearance, and forgetting. The central argument is that writing occupies a unique position within this process. Unlike most technologies that become obsolete, writing is a technology that resists obsolescence by preserving memory across generations. It allows ideas, beliefs, and experiences to survive beyond the lifespan of individuals and institutions. The book develops the provocative thesis that writing is not merely a tool of remembrance but also one of humanity’s most effective instruments of forgetting. By transferring memories into external signs, texts, archives, libraries, and databases, writing frees the human mind from the burden of carrying everything within itself. What is written down no longer needs to be continuously remembered. In this sense, writing simultaneously preserves and releases memory, functioning as a cultural mechanism that balances remembrance and forgetting. From ancient acts of book burning and religious censorship to modern forms of ideological exclusion and digital information management, the volume explores the many ways societies attempt to regulate collective memory. It argues that civilizations have always required forms of cultural obsolescence in order to prevent the paralysis that would result from remembering everything. Yet the emergence of digital archives and artificial intelligence raises an unprecedented question. What happens when forgetting becomes increasingly difficult and humanity acquires the technical capacity to preserve almost everything? As part of the trilogy’s wider investigation into the planned obsolescence of language, The Unplanned Obsolescence of Writing examines the tension between memory and erasure, permanence and renewal, preservation and disappearance. It ultimately asks whether a civilization capable of remembering everything can still create anything new, and whether the future of human communication depends not only on what we remember, but also on what we choose to forget.