Those interested in Christ & Culture issues may wanna bookmark Steve Beard’s site: THUNDERSTRUCK.
Long overdue in the margins of this site is a link to Khouria Frederica Mathewes-Green’s.
Both are now added to the side margin.
BTW, I understand that those using Mozilla, Foxfire, are not seeing the material in the side margin until late in the page. Sorry. Hope to figure out a fix soon.
Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled with a soft radiance. There are no apertures for ventilation, yet the air is fresh. There are no musical instruments, and yet, at the moment that my meditation opens, this room is throbbing with melodious sounds. An armchair is in the center, by its side a reading-desk—that is all the furniture. And in the armchair there sits a swaddled lump of flesh—a woman, about five feet high, with a face as white as a fungus. It is to her that this room belongs.
Taken from a 1909 story, “The Machine Stops,” by E.M. Forster.
Thanks to Mere Comments (and a host of other links) for alerting us all to this long but worthy read by Christine Rosen in the New Atlantis. Here follows a few excerpts but, really, do go read the whole thing …
This avoids the more important question of whether watching TV is really what we should be spending so much time doing in the first place. We are talking about the technology, not about what it encourages us to do. Like e-mail, TiVo offers us a more efficient way to perform a particular task, but in this case that “task” is watching television. For those who worry about the negative impact of television, this is akin to celebrating the invention of an easier and more effective syringe for injecting heroin.
Meat powder made Pavlov’s dog drool; television does something similar to our brains. As an extensive treatment of television viewing habits in Scientific American noted in 2002, “Psychologists and psychiatrists formally define substance dependence as a disorder characterized by criteria that include spending a great deal of time using the substance; using it more often than one intends; thinking about reducing use or making repeated unsuccessful efforts to reduce use; giving up important social, family, or occupational activities to use it; and reporting withdrawal symptoms when one stops using it.” Researchers have found that “all these criteria can apply to people who watch a lot of television.”
An April 2004 study in Pediatrics concluded that “hours of television viewed per day at both ages one and three was associated with attentional problems at age seven,” even controlling for factors such as socioeconomic status. “Limiting young children’s exposure to television as a medium during formative years of brain development,” they concluded, “may reduce children’s subsequent risk of developing ADHD” (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder).
When he introduced the iPod, Apple CEO Steve Jobs claimed that “listening to music will never be the same again.” Judging by the testimonials of iPod users, this was not merely marketing overstatement. One iPod enthusiast spoke of his device in tones one usually reserves for describing a powerful deity: “It’s with me anywhere, anytime…. It’s there all the time. It’s instant gratification for music…. It’s God’s own jukebox.” Like TiVo, iPod inspires feverish devotion in its users.
Like TiVo, control is the reason people give when asked why they love iPod. In a February 2004 interview with Wired News, Michael Bull, who teaches at the University of Sussex and writes extensively about portable music devices, argued, “People like to be in control. They are controlling their space, their time and their interaction…. That can’t be understated—it gives them a lot of pleasure.” Like TiVo, this degree of control, once experienced, inspires great loyalty; the praise of iPod users echoes that of TiVo owners, both of whom often remark on how they can’t believe they ever lived without the devices. But because the iPod is a portable technology, just like the cell phone, it has an impact on social space that TiVo does not. Those people with white wires dangling from their ears might be enjoying their unique life soundtrack, but they are also practicing “absent presence” in public spaces, paying little or no attention to the world immediately around them. Bull is unconcerned with the possible selfishness this might foster: “How often do you talk to people in public anyway?” he asks.
It is no coincidence that we impute God-like powers to our technologies of personalization (TiVo, iPod) that we would never impute to gate-keeping technologies. No one ever referred to Caller ID as “Jehovah’s Secretary.”
University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein engaged this dilemma in his book, Republic.com. Sunstein argues that our technologies—especially the Internet—are encouraging group polarization: “As the customization of our communications universe increases, society is in danger of fragmenting, shared communities in danger of dissolving.” Borrowing the idea of “the daily me” from M.I.T. technologist Nicholas Negroponte, Sunstein describes a world where “you need not come across topics and views that you have not sought out. Without any difficulty, you are able to see exactly what you want to see, no more and no less.” Sunstein is concerned about the possible negative effects this will have on deliberative democratic discourse, and he urges websites to include links to sites that carry alternative views. Although his solutions bear a trace of impractical ivory tower earnestness—you can lead a rabid partisan to water, after all, but you can’t make him drink—his diagnosis of the problem is compelling. “People should be exposed to materials that they would not have chosen in advance,” he notes. “Unplanned, unanticipated encounters are central to democracy itself.”
Sunstein’s insights have lessons beyond politics. If these technologies facilitate polarization in politics, what influence are they exerting over art, literature, and music? In our haste to find the quickest, most convenient, and most easily individualized way of getting what we want, are we creating eclectic personal theaters or sophisticated echo chambers? Are we promoting a creative individualism or a narrow individualism? An expansion of choices or a deadening of taste?
Seriously, if you haven’t already, GO HERE.
JibJab’s Second Term.
Caveat Lector! Voyeur! (Whatever!)
Fr John Oliver, author of the excellent book, Touching Heaven: Discovering Orthodox Christianity on the Island of Valaam, has filed a report on the Consecrations of three new bishops for the Antiochian Archdiocese H E R E.
A while back, I mentioned the Essence magazine article regarding the degrading of black women by Hip Hop music videos and culture.
H E R E’s more.
And, in case you haven’t heard, Kid Rock will NOT be jammin’ with the Bushes.
The Dawn Patrol provides an interview with Martin Luther King’s neice, Alveda King, which might surprise you. (Psst … she’s conservative!)
For those unable to make it to the annual March for Life in our nation’s capitol on January 24th, here is the Office for the Victims of Abortion which our Mission will pray outside a local killing place.
O most merciful, all gracious and compassionate Lord Jesus Christ our Savior, Son of God: we entreat Thee, most gracious Master: look with compassion upon Thy children who have been condemned to death by the unjust judgement of men. And as Thou hast promised to bestow the heavenly kingdom on them born of water and the Spirit, and who in blamelessness of life have been translated unto Thee; and Who said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven” – we humbly pray, according to Thy unfailing promise: grant the inheritance of Thy kingdom to the multitude of spotless infants who have been cruelly murdered in the abortuaries of this land; for Thou art the resurrection and the life and the repose of all Thy servants and of these innocents, O Christ our God.
Turn the hearts of those who seek to destroy Thy little ones. We beseech Thee to pour forth Thy healing grace upon them, that they may be convicted in their hearts and turn from their evil ways. Remember all of them that kill our children as on the altars of Moloch, and render not unto them according to their deeds, but according to Thy great mercy convert them: the unbelieving to true faith and piety, and the believing that they may turn from evil and do good.
O Holy Master, Almighty Father and pre-eternal God, Who alone made and directs all things; Who rises up quickly against the evil of the impious ones; who, by providence, teaches Thy people preservation of justice and the obliteration of evil on earth; Who condescends to raise up warriors for the protection of the people of God: we entreat Thee with compunction, that as Thou didst give David power to defeat Goliath, and as Thou didst condescend through Judas Maccabeus, to seize victory from the arrogant pagans who would not call on Thy Name; so too, grant protection to us, Thy servants against the enemies rising against us as we go forth to do spiritual battle against the evil one and those who do his will rather than Thine.
For Thou art a merciful God, and lovest mankind, and unto Thee do we send up glory: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
(Concluding prayer of the above noted Office)
