For some time now I have been wanting to write that seminal piece explaining the essence of the philosophy of “technoskepticism” that motivated my desire to start up Wetmachine in the first place. My brilliant essay, in the line of the late Neil Postman’s Technopoloy and all of the grouchy, curmudgeonly works of the late, great Christopher Lasch (Culture of Narcissism, Revolt of the Elites, etc) would, in a playful yet dazzlingly serious manner, address the fundamental ironies of our time resultant from the fetishization of technology that has taken on the role of religion in “modern” societies that naively believe they’re past all that.
Perhaps I would address scary (but nevertheless ironic) phenomena like technology-boosted asymmetric warfare as carried out by midieaval fundamentalists — today’s blasts in London presumably the latest sad manifistation thereof. And perhaps I would digress to discuss internet pornography consumption among teenagers in the pro-capitalism Bible Belt of the USA, another region in which the “internal contradictions” of the fundamentalist-technopolist religion play out.
Alas I have no time to work on this essay today. Because I’m really behind the 8-ball at work, as a consequence of having dropped my Powerbook into a puddle of coffee some weeks ago. It’s still “in the shop” and I’ve been reduced to using the virus-infested, 4-year old Gateway(tm) that is our family computer. Let me tell you, this thing is slow. And, I don’t have all my favorite tools installed on it. And there’s nothing quite so frustrating as trying to write a powerful essay on the ironies of technology addiction on a crappy old Windoze machine, that much I’m sure of.
So perhaps some other time.
I look forward to it. John, I think you’re on to something, but I hope you can formulate the issue better than (what I see in my newly aquired introduction to) Postman. Thanks for the link. I took issue with nearly every single thing he said, but felt that his overal distaste came from somewhere meaningful. I found this summary of his thinking —
http://itrs.scu.edu/tshanks… I felt everything he said was either tautological or wrong. I hope and trust that you’ll do a better job at getting to the real issue.