Technology

I've been struggling with the question of technological "improvement" for awhile. VDH does it more articulately.

The point is not to denigrate high-tech, but to remind us that it a tool that is as good or bad — to paraphrase Shane — as the person using it. But with one great caveat, today’s glitzy technology is so impressive, so captivating to the human brain that it has the ability to confuse us about master and slave, cause and effect, the pump and water in a way the abacus or the telegraph did not. Sometimes consumer high-tech is the Catholic pessimist Tolkien’s master ring, a thing seemingly of great potential, but one that might corrupt those who think they can use its power for goodness.

Use it — but beware that at best the speed, ease of use, and greater awareness at our fingertips simply accelerate, emphasize, and accentuate whether we are dunces and boors or pretty informed and decent folk. And at worst, it is more likely to make us the former rather than the latter.