Ted Gioia's "State of the Culture, 2024" is full of insights about where we are as a society. 

Alan Jacobs has some thought-provoking comments on the role of technology in "Attending to Technology: Theses for Disputation."

Online courses are particularly poorly suited to replicate the best, most important parts of a liberal arts education: long papers on complex topics, graded by a human being, and intense discussion of ideas. 

Max Nixen, "11 Reasons to Ignore the Haters and Major in the Humanities"

Here's one college professor's rationale for not allowing laptops in the classroom.

My essay "Technology? Let's Ask the Storytellers" is up on Humane Pursuits.

G.K. Chesterton once remarked that the sight of a rhinoceros ought to inspire wonder in us, wonder that such a ridiculous looking being actually exists. What was meant by this witticism was that we ought never to take the existence of a thing for granted, as if it was inevitable or necessary. When faced with the sight of something as odd as a rhinoceros, we ought to ask ourselves “Why does this exist, and in such a funny shape?” Similarly, when faced with the sight of something as odd as Twitter, we ought to ask ourselves: Why does this exist? And why, instead of pondering this existential question, are most of its users simply debating the proper and improper ends to which it can be put? What does it say about us as a society that our ninth most visited website is not, say, a forum where people can donate money to directly aid victims of war-torn countries in Africa, but a forum where we can announce to both friends and strangers exactly what we’re doing and how we’re feeling about life?

Ben Garner, "Why Does Technology Even Exist?"

Wendell Berry:

"What is the purpose of this technological progress? What higher aim do we think it is serving? Surely the aim cannot be the integrity or happiness of our families, which we have made subordinate to the education system, the television industry, and the consumer economy. Surely it cannot be the integrity or health of our communities, which we esteem even less than we esteem our families. Surely it cannot be love of our country, for we are far more concerned about the desecration of the flag than we are about the desecration of our land. Surely it cannot be the love of God, which counts for at least as little in the daily order of business as the love of family, community, and country.

"The higher aims of 'technological progress' are money and ease. And this exalted greed for money and ease is disguised and justified by an obscure, cultish faith in 'the future.' We do as we do, we say, 'for the sake of the future,' or 'to make a better future for our children.' How can we hope to make a good future by doing badly in the present, we do not say. We cannot think about the future, of course, for the future does not exist: the existence of the future is an article of faith. We can be assured only that, if there is to be a future, the good of it is already implicit in the good things of the present. We do not need to plan or devise a 'world of the future'; if we take care of the world of the present, the future will have received full justice from us. . . . We have no need to contrive and dabble at 'the future of the human race'; we have the same pressing need that we have always had--to love, care for, and teach our children."

--"Feminism, the Body, and the Machine," What Are People For?

"Technology has its place: behind a caring teacher."

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Okay--last review from my Christmas break reading.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Even though it’s quite preachy, and therefore suffers as a work of fiction, Bradbury is making a critical point with this book. That point is this: We are losing our connection with nature, with our past, with our loved ones, and with ourselves because we are so saturated with technology that we are no longer reflective beings.

This point is even more significant now than it was in the 1950’s, when Bradbury wrote the book. Before television, high-speed travel, and other new technologies, we were a society, in general, of readers and reflective beings. But that is no longer true. Although the story is obviously not a literal prediction of the future, Bradbury's insight into the direction of society is astounding. Several of his predictions in this book sound eerily like today’s world. Here are a few thoughts:

1. In Bradbury’s future dystopia, no one has deep, enduring relationships with people. Their relationships are superficial, mainly because of pervasive media saturation. People would rather be listening to their earbuds (which Bradbury predicts) and looking at screens. For example, Montag’s wife and her superficial friends cannot hold an intelligent, articulate conversation because they are so addicted to their virtual world (her living room walls are made of interactive TV screens, and she interacts with a virtual family, to the detriment of real relationships). The houses of Bradbury’s future have no front porches because neighbors don’t get to know each other anymore. Bradbury’s world of people disconnected from each other sounds a lot like today’s de-incarnated world.

2. People in Bradbury’s future are also disconnected from nature. They live in concrete cities, they travel at high speed, etc. In addition, the countryside is filled with enormous billboards. Trees are “green blurs,” cows are “brown blurs,” and no one slows down to reflect on the beauty of the natural world.

3. People in Bradbury’s future are also disconnected from the self. They are not reflective. They are bombarded by advertising and by the saturation of technology—visual, auditory, etc. Because of this, no one ever slows down enough to think. In fact, the reason Montag begins to “snap” and question his whole society is that he meets Clarisse, a girl who doesn’t fit in. She is reflective, in touch with herself, with her family, and with nature. She actually greets Montag on the street, and after their conversation, Montag starts thinking about how he has never been reflective. Eventually, he realizes that he needs to change, and that his whole society is sick.

4. Bradbury shows how easy it is for the government to manipulate the people in a society dominated by images and not words. People do not question what the top-down government does because the government PR machine is so effective in controlling public opinion.

5. The education system in the book also looks eerily like today’s—a de-emphasis on the humanities (meaning and values) and the promotion of job skills-based education. Interestingly, Bradbury predicts the downfall of liberal arts colleges because of the rise of education as mere job training. One of the heroes of the book is a former English prof, and there is an underground network of former history and English educators. (I'm sure they would be a tough bunch. But of course, I have to love any story that involves an English teacher as one of the heroes.)

6. Bradbury also predicts the death of the newspaper. In a world where people value entertainment over civic duty, no one cares about investigative reporting, and no one sees a need to keep tabs on the government or stay abreast of current issues. Sadly, we see this happening today.

7. Bradbury saw that when people are not reading books and thus not thinking critically, elections are won through style and not substance. In a reference to the presidential election, Montag’s wife and her friends imply that they voted for the guy who won not because of any substance, but because he looked good on television. The other candidate, they noted, was too boring.

8. Bradbury predicts the breakdown of the family as a result of superficial relationships and media saturation. People in Bradbury's world have generally had several marriages, and parents don’t care much about their children. Bradbury even predicted the TV as babysitter.

9. The mechanical hound chase for Montag reminded me so much of The Hunger Games. Bradbury took Montag’s race for survival through the countryside and put it on national television—it was a big reality show. Americans were entertaining themselves watching a deadly machine track and try to kill Montag. I would love to continue exploring parallels between The Hunger Games and Fahrenheit 451, because there are a lot of them.

10. I also noticed a few parallels with The Giver, another favorite of mine. Both stories involve a utilitarian society that discourages reflection and cultural questioning, the awakening of a citizen who begins to question the culture's values, the guidance of a fatherly mentor who sees the problem but regrets not doing anything about it, and the character finally choosing to do something drastic in defiance of his culture. I would guess that Lois Lowry was influenced, at least subconsciously, by this book.

11. I loved how Bradbury incorporated classic literature into the story. In a pivotal scene when Montag is beginning to question his culture's values, he is burning down a house that contains books. As he does, the woman who owns the books and is about to be taken away quotes Hugh Latimer’s words to Nicholas Ridely as they were being executed, from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs: “We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out!”

12. Bradbury clearly shows that the choice not to read books is a decision that society is making. Initially, it was not the government that made people stop reading books—the people just stopped reading because television screens were more interesting. In an interview with Bradbury in the back of the book, the interviewer points out, “One thing people sometimes forget about Fahrenheit 451 is that the government doesn’t begin by burning books—it’s ordinary people who turn away from reading and the habits of thought and reflection it encourages.”

A few significant passages:

"One time as a child, in a power-failure, his mother had found and lit a last candle and there had been a brief hour of rediscovery of such illumination that space lost its vast dimensions and drew comfortably around them, and they, mother and son, alone, transformed, hoping that the power might not come on again soon.”

“I don't talk things, sir. I talk the meaning of things.”

"If the government is inefficient, topheavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so … full of 'facts' they fell stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change.”

"School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?"

“Stuff your eyes with wonder, he said, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”

“The old man admitted to being a retired English Professor who had been thrown out upon the world forty years ago when the last liberal arts college shut for lack of students and patronage.”


View all my reviews

The danger most immediately to be feared in "technological progress" is the degradation and obselescence of the body. Implicit in the technological revolution from the beginning has been a new version of the old dualism, one always destructive, and now more destructive than ever. For many centuries, there have been people who looked upon the body, as upon the natural world, as an encumbrance of the soul, and so have hated the body, as they have hated the natural world, and longed to be free of it. They have seen the body as intolerably imperfect by spiritual standards. More recently, since the beginning of the technological revolution, more and more people have looked upon the body, along with the rest of the natural creation, as intolerably imperfect by mechanical standards. They see the body as an encumbrance of the mind--the mind, that is, as reduced to a set of mechanical ideas that can be implemented in machines--and so they hate it and long to be free of it. The body has limits that the machine does not have; therefore, remove the body from the machine so that the machine can continue as an unlimited idea.

Wendell Berry, "Feminism, the Body, and the Machine," from What Are People For?