Hypertext and Theological Reflection: Surfing for Wisdom
Duncan Ballard
The very idea of hypertextuality seems to have taken form at approximately the same time that poststructuralism developed, but their points of convergence have a closer relation than that of mere contingency, for both grow out of dissatisfaction with the related phenomena of the printed book and hierarchical thought. (Landow, Hyper/Text/Theory 1)
Introduction
During my time at College, preparing for Ordination in the Church of England, theological reflection was a significant feature of our training, and I became more and more interested in the means of representing the process of thinking theologically. As a result of my previous life working with computers, I have become interested in the use of hypertext as a medium for representing theological reflection. This short paper is intended to clarify my thoughts on the connections between theological reflection and hypertext theory, explore the theoretical implications for hypertext as a medium of collaboration and as a facilitator of dialogue, and give some indication of the practical uses for such a theoretical undertaking.
The process of Theological Reflection
My first introduction to computer technology was through the medium of games, particularly adventure games. The player takes on the role of a hero and has to solve puzzles, battle monsters, collect treasure, and wend one's way through a complicated maze in order to reach an ultimate goal. I was never particularly interested in attaining the goal (usually the acquisition of a fantastic object or the defeat of a particularly powerful creature); rather, I preferred to explore the maze. It was always wanting to know what mysteries were just around the next corner that drove me forward. The game didn't have to have a particular beginning or ending--just a series of branching, twisting passages that led to new locations, or returned to old locations by a new route.
I've come to regard this type of game as a metaphor for theological reflection: I know that I have a particular destination in mind, but it is the journey toward that destination, and the discoveries that lay in its path that give me pleasure and encourage me onward. The twists and turns of a maze are certainly not linear, even though they do lead from one specific point to another and often circle around a particular location, coming near to the entrance to the next level, say, and then veering off at the last moment only to return unexpectedly at a later point; however, the player can't see that this has happened until all of the maze on that level has been revealed. My writing habits follow this pattern also: I find myself ready to end an essay or a passage on a particular topic only to find that my attention has been drawn to a relevant point which draws me away from my conclusion, takes me to new ideas which demand consideration, and ultimately returns me to my final point. If I do not try to force my ideas to follow a pre-designed pattern, I find that I can more successfully convey complex ideas.
I suspect that the difficulty of rendering thought into a logical, sequential (linear) text is a common experience for most students (and theological reflectors!) Ludwig Wittgenstein, in the preface to his Philosophical Investigations, struggled with the notion of writing a linear text from complex, nonlinear thought processes; he acknowledges that his thinking process is nonlinear, but he has been taught to write in a linear tradition, and thus he finds that his thoughts are "soon crippled" if he tries to "force them on in any single direction against their natural inclination". He describes his thought process in terms of travelling "over a wide field of thought criss-cross in every direction," and as "long and involved journeyings". When I first read these descriptions I was immediately reminded of the computer-game metaphor I had been contemplating as a description of my own reflection process, but Wittgenstein also made me aware that conceiving of a thinking (or writing, or reflecting) process is not as simple as the exploration of a maze: there is no single, self-contained passage which can be occupied at any given point; there is, instead, a continually shifting locus of a series of points, always interconnecting, never singular.
The difficulty with realizing that thought is interconnected in extremely complex patterns is that one must reconsider the effectiveness of current modes of representation. A linear text cannot (with clarity) convey the complexity of the human thought process, and this produces the urge to create non-linear texts; however, in order to present logical and cohesive writing in printed text, the urge to digress into the maze of associations evoked by each new word or phrase must suppressed. Wittgenstein contemplated how a non-linear text might work, writing that "the only presentation of which I am still capable is to connect [my] remarks by a network of numbers which will make evident their extremely complicated connections" (quoted. in Baker and Hacker 24).
Most recent attempts to describe an experientially based approach to theology utilize the image of a circle or a spiral. The great value of such images is that they emphasize that you are engaged in a dynamic thought process. Thus, you may begin by being involved in a practical issue, move on to participate in a deeper analysis of this (by using insights from the social sciences, for instance), then draw on the resources of your faith - all the time continuing to carry out an active response. In this way, theory and practice are held together. Interestingly, such a description is familiar to those involved in both adult education and community work.
Although these are helpful images, they do tend to impose the idea of unified and coherent development on the whole process, which rarely happens in real life. This, though, is just one way of looking at what happens, and there are others. I would prefer to describe the process in less conclusive terms as, in my experience, direct practical involvement can lead out in a whole variety of directions and draw on resources, both theological and non-theological, that never do actually lead back to the starting point. A more appropriate picture, in the light of this, is the poppy seed head. The encounter with a particular problem is the stimulus for action, which can be likened to the breeze that blows the seed head. The effect of this is that the poppy seeds are blown out in many different directions; there is an explosion of energy. Not all of the seeds will germinate, but no one can know in advance what will come of this release of potential: some of the growth may happen at a distance from the original poppy; some of it may be of obvious benefit to the original site; it may well not be possible to hold the developments together in a coherent picture or to make sense of them as a whole. The subsequent process, therefore, is altogether more random and fragmented than the image of the spiral implies; it cannot be restricted to or contained in such a neat formula.
Now, in a new medium made available by the advent of desktop computers and advances in software programming techniques, is a "writing space" which would have perfectly accommodated Wittgenstein's interconnected texts. The rapid adoption of the internet as a medium for world-wide communication has resulted in new ways of presenting information that were simply not possible a decade or so ago. Ever since Gutenburg invented movable type we have lived in a culture dominated by print. Now we are in the midst of a communications revolution as profound as that which saw the printed book replace oral and manuscript texts. In Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext and the History of Writing, Jay David Bolter describes electronic texts--texts that exist not on paper, but in the memory of a computer--as falling "naturally into discrete units--paragraphs or sections that stand in multiple relation to one another. An electronic text is a network rather than the straight line suggested by the pages of a printed book". This computer-mediated electronic media, which allows people to represent their on-going theological reflections and to free their texts from the traditional boundaries imposed by the periodic rhetoric of the printed document, is known as hypertext.
"Hypertext" is a term coined by computer visionary Theodor Holm Nelson in 1964. In 1960, Nelson had been working on his own philosophical investigations, a text to be called Truth, Man, and Choice; as he wrote, he discovered that, like Wittgenstein, he too had difficulty in organizing his ideas in a strictly linear form (Nelson 45). In his memoirs, he articulates the frustrating process of writing a sequential text:
. . . you take a structured complex of thought (I like to call it a structangle) that you are trying to communicate, and you break it into individual sequential parts that can be put end to end, and this is a wholly artificial process, a breakdown not intrinsic to the structure of thought you are trying to convey, but based upon the fact that it has to be published eventually in a sequence.
Hypertext was created in an attempt to overcome to very problem I had been experiencing in recording theological reflections.
Defining Hypertext
In 1989, the American Institute for Research's Document Design Centre described hypertext as follows:
Unlike a book, where the material progresses from one page to the next in linear fashion, a hypertext document (or hyperdocument) is a collection of computer files. Users are free to trace a variety of paths through the material, choosing which files they will view and in what order. The files may include text, graphics, animation, sound, and even other programs, such as word processors, spreadsheet programs, or relational database managers.
Hypertext, however, is more than simply a new method for accessing and retrieving information. The ability to "move through textual information and images is only half the system; a true hypermedia environment also includes tools enabling the user to rearrange" and add to the material. Hypertext blurs the boundary between reader and author, at the very least demanding an active reader. Since all hypertext systems permit the individual reader to choose his or her own centre of investigation and experience, the reader is not locked into any kind of particular organization or hierarchy. In this sense, electronic hypertext manages:
to make the reader no longer a consumer, but a producer of the text. Our literature is characterized by the pitiless divorce which the literary institution maintains between the producer of the text and its user, between its owner and its customer, between its author and its reader. This reader is thereby plunged into a kind of idleness--he is intransitive; he is, in short, serious: instead of functioning himself, instead of gaining access to the magic of the signifier, to the pleasure of writing, he is left with no more than the poor freedom either to accept or reject the text.
The drawbacks of the linear document when used for theological reflection are well rehearsed. While linear reflections can be useful in an academic setting (the 'examiner' must be able to 'mark' the reflection in some way), the paths which the reader follows are explicitly determined by the author and the reader cannot create new links or forge new paths through the texts being read; in this sense, hypertexts reproduce the hierarchical power structure (author over reader). Hypertext documents, I believe, are an exciting new way of reproducing theological reflection. As Joyce describes them,
Hypertexts . . . require a capability to act: to create, to change, and to recover particular encounters within the developing body of knowledge. . . . These encounters, like those in exploratory hypertexts, are maintained as versions, i.e., trails, paths, webs, notebooks, etc.; but they are versions of what they are becoming, a structure for what does not yet exist...
Hypertext reflections are left open; that is, readers may connect to what is already written and comment upon it, whereas linear documents close off all avenues but the ones already inscribed. Hypertext reflections also make possible a wider range of collaborative and dialogue-facilitating writing activities.
Relationship of hypertext to reflection
The main source for this framework is liberation theology. There are obvious reasons for this. First, as with many other contextual theologies, liberation theology takes as its starting point the experiences of those on the margins of society. Second, it attempts to establish a prophetic perspective on current social and political injustices with a view to working towards a more just society. Third, it takes seriously the issue of power, which is an inescapable dimension in any form of social analysis that is to speak to the needs of the marginalized. Finally, it is not afraid to employ methods of social analysis that do not derive from Christian sources. These four elements offer us clues as to the nature of a local theology relevant to this group.
A local theology will take as its starting point the stories and accounts of those who are most deeply and seriously affected by contemporary social changes. This means listening to the voices of those least able - for personal and economic reasons - to cope with the forces in our culture that may well benefit a majority of people, but only at the cost of the deprivation of others. Among these forces we might identify, particularly, the growing individualism of our culture - the predominance of self-interest as a motivating political factor, concern for short-term profitability at the expense of social need, and a limiting view of what it is to be a human being, which reduces individuals and communities to means serving economic ends. Unless the voices of those who are at the sharp end of these social and political trends can be listened to, there is no chance of developing a theology that not only makes contact with, but takes as a touchstone of our culture those who are on the margins of society. Engaging in the process of local theology in this way I would see as both a moral and pastoral necessity.
The second element in the process will then be to draw on the critical analyses of contemporary life, offered in particular by the social sciences. In other words, it will not do simply to offer a sympathetic ear to those in need. We must work together to understand the economic and political forces that create or sustain these needs. This is no easy task, particularly as few church people, let alone theologians, have the necessary skills and knowledge in the fields of social and political analysis. However, the task is an essential one if we are not to be drawn into action and reaction in a naive and uncritical manner. It may be that not everybody will be able to contribute to this level of the process, but then it places a considerable responsibility for clear presentation and communication on to those who do have the time and energy to give to the work of analysis. One of the major failings of many well-meaning church reports and statements on contemporary issues is their unwillingness to enter into the debates in sufficient depth.
Any local theology must also, of course, make reference to the familiar sources of our own tradition - Scripture, its subsequent interpretations by fellow Christians - and, indeed, the experiences of Christians in other places struggling with similar problems. We do this not in order to read answers to current problems straight out of these sources, but in order to maintain the discussion with fellow Christians through common language and symbols. What constitutes an appropriate use of Christian sources may become clearer as we investigate further the development of a contemporary spirituality.
Finally, local theology must be based on, and feed back into, local, practical engagement with the issues at hand. All the reflection in the world will be of no earthly use unless it both sustains and provides critical perspectives on the work that we do. Here we see that localized version of human reason in action - thinking things out as we go along, being prepared to revise and rethink as well as to react, offering frameworks that may be of use to others in similar situations.
In summary then, the ideas emerging from liberation theology that inform a local theology lead to this four-fold structure: listening to the local stories, drawing on contemporary analytical frameworks such as sociology and psychology, drawing on Christian sources, and then direct engagement with local issues and needs. This is our first mediating framework.
Essentially, every text is informed by other texts which the reader has read, and the reader's own cultural context. The simplest articulation of this intertextuality can be seen in the footnotes that indicate source materials to which a given text is referring, or which are known to have influenced the author. A hypertext reflection can make this notion of intertextuality an externally accessible "mosaic" of multiple objects (including texts, music, voice, still images, art work, video and animation), placing the theological ideas and threads of thought into a visible forum which can be expanded by each subsequent reader.
Hypertext can make the study of sources immediately accessible to the reader: for example, providing all readers of a given reflection access to the full range of historical, literary, and biographical materials that might enrich their reading. This access to 'paratextual' references is an aid to the way that that theological reflection should be conducted--as part of a broad, culturally informed and contextualized field of related texts.
In a linear, traditional reflection, the annotations are set and cannot be changed or added to; however, in a hypertext reflection a reader can add his or her own references, making explicit the connections to other works (textual or cultural) he or she perceives in the original text. Furthermore, subsequent readers of the original text can have access to each other's annotations and can see intra- and inter-textual references (theological and otherwise) of which they might not otherwise have been aware. However, the increasing number of annotations may serve to draw attention away from the original reflection and may in fact become by extension part of the original text itself, as its context is constantly revised by new commentary (akin perhaps more to the process of midrash than hermeneutics). In this way, a hypertext reflection makes clear that the act of reading is an action which changes the understanding of the reflection relative to the individual reader's circumstances.
This notion of the reflection as a woven fabric can be incorporated into Kristeva's intertextuality--the threads of the woven fabric can be seen as the three planes of the textual space she maps. Because hypertext does not privilege any given unit of text over another (the annotations which were visually identified as marginalia in a print context are no longer subjugated to the primary text, and may contain links of their own to sources which do not directly inform the reading of that primary text), the use of constructive hypertexts can problematize the notion of authorship. This linking of ideas effectively acts as an agent of appropriation, forcefully declaring that an author's theological reflection is not the author's alone, but belongs to a larger intertextual matrix.
Hypertext and Collaboration
A hypertext theological reflection is inherently a collaboration between reader and writer: the writer provides the thoughts and the original set of multiple links which the reader may follow--by choosing certain links and not others, the reader constructs a meaning which is different from the meaning that any other reader will construct, and which may be different from any meaning the writer intended. This form of "collaboration," however, is superficial; it does not require an active engagement between reader and writer. Hypertext systems which allow the reader to add new links and new thoughts to the original work constitute a more concrete form of collaboration, as the original writer may attack, defend, or question the links or thoughts that the reader has added, and all links and thoughts remain accessible to successive readers. Because in the space of hypertextual reflection, anything that arises will be merged and gathered into the network of reflections, contradictory or resistant discourse can exist alongside those voices which converge upon agreement, thus allowing the coexistence of consenting and dissenting voices, of voices from the mainstream and the margins, or constructing a kind of consensus that incorporates a multiplicity of independent voices rather than constructing a final, authoritative position.
Hypertext and Theological Reflection in practice
As an exploration, a simple theological reflection was created on the above lines. Due to problems with the software, only a Word 200o document and an html document was produced, with the Word document being superior in terms of navigation and functionality. Nevertheless, the document does demonstrate some of the advantages (and several of the disadvantages) of using hypertext as a tool. The very problems of producing such a reflection highlight several pressing areas for research:
Writing Hypertext
One of the chief difficulties in writing hypertext is the problem of navigation - readers need to be able to tell which nodes they have read and which node they might want to read next. Thus a reflection might lose direction and coherence (resulting in what one author describes as "hyperchaos"!). There is certainly a tension between the need to provide direction and make specific choices about linking various thoughts together and the need to relinquish the state of authority by allowing the reader to create and add to the original text (in the case of hypertexts); that is, to allow hypertexts to function as a medium or "writing space" for both the individual and the community. It is the exploitation of this tension that enables hypertext to become a medium for collaboration which allows and encourages multivocal discourses and allows writers to see themselves as being both individuals and members of a community. Other problems of using hypertext include (and there may well be many others):
- disenfranchising non computer-literate students and readers;
- the tendency to concentrate upon the technology (or medium) rather than the reflection (or message);
- using a computer is a fairly solitary past time - even though collaboration would be encouraged by using hypertext reflections, the initial author would be working in isolation
- requires an 'active' reader
- can be difficult to prove ownership of material
- difficulty in producing a hard copy (or example, to be published)
However, perhaps the greatest problem is the lack of any tools or software to facilitate the production of collaborative hypertext reflections, and this is the problem that I would like to turn to while I am still studying at Cardiff. What I have in mind is decentralised software (that is, not requiring a central administrator or computer) that will allow for shared theological spaces to be created. These spaces can be kept private for just one person to work on, shared within a community of theologians, or published for the whole world to see. The facilities will include not only hypertextual documents, but also hypermedia, allowing sound, voice, animations, video, even live video, to be integrated into the reflection. Already additional applications have been identified for this software other than collaborative theological reflection, including theological training for users who live some distance away from a college, shared authorship of reports and articles, and shared databases of knowledge.
The software already exists, in a skeleton form, and should be ready for release within this year. The software should be free, although it is likely that some training will be necessary (which may not be!)
Duncan Ballard, St. Michael's College
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