Sunday 25 February 2018

Sawing off the branch on which I'm sitting

Anyone who has read this blog before will know I have a downer on digital culture. I am of course thereby thrust unwillingly, albeit not unconsciously, into the classic position of the man who is sawing off the branch on which he is sitting. So be it, say I. If it is so, it will not be the least absurd of all the contradictions that circulate the globe in a digital format.

Better that than other vices which existed prior to the internet and will always attend those who try to communicate in any way imaginable (which is all the human race!): the vices I refer to are a failure to be conscious of one's tools of communication; a failure to be aware that they shape what we say and even what we think; and the failure to admit that humans always have an ambiguous relationship with their tools. Errors or vices, say you? The former very often lead to the latter.

I know what you're thinking, so stop it! A bad workman always blames his tools. That may be true but its truth is not nearly so close to home as that of the lesser used adage: we make our tools and our tools make us. What kind of man does the internet make? That is the question. That is all the more the question if, as today, we spend so much of our time thinking, feeling and operating through its channels.

None of this would matter perhaps until we get to the question of whether the man made by the internet conforms to the man planned in the mind of God. Here the question is not whether the internet can be a good source of information or even a weapon of leverage in the information age. The question is whether immersion in it is compatible with our call to wisdom, the greatest of the gifts of the Holy Ghost and the one that makes us most like God.

Saw-saw-saw.  I know. Some questions are best left to simmer on their own.

No comments:

Post a Comment