The aquired, non-genetic storage of necessary cultural information : Paideia has to take place from one generation to the other. Viewed not from its content, but its structure, the syntax  enables an imperative, indicative etc. Hence a surface covered in code (a picture)  for example of an enthusiastic, dynamic smoker is an indicative.

In early education one learns mainly these imperatives from group-members or instructors. These 'behavioural programmes' set values and ethics for life.

In school the communication of operatives provides an 'experiential programme'.

Tertiary and lifelong education operate on indicatives, or 'knowledge’ (Erkenntnis)

All three levels are of course never distinct in reality. To not 'pick your nose' can remain a life-long value, but school or tertiary information can be obsolete within a very short time.

Paideia or the messages, that programme us are now being usurped by a single sender, the mass media . It transmits the imperative of the system itself, which are mainly models for behaviours of consumption. The outcome is a value-free behaviour, that allows the interests of the senders to appear as one with the interests of the receivers.

A programming elite with the help of science & technology beam their discursive indicatives form the centre of a one-way amphitheatre. The codes of mass-culture tend to become universal on the 'techno-imaginative surfaces' (TV, magazines, billboards etc.) which are absorbed by the receivers.

The division of sender vs. receiver culture works to the advantage of the ‘elite’, which aims to consume to the max, and has other than that little vision of the direction of the entire programme, in fact they are outright incapable of assembling any other programme.

Interactive, dialogic networks are the answer to a mono-logical discourse.

Inspired by:
Vilém Flusser, Kommunikologie, Fischer 1998, pp 309-329