Striving for Cosmic Diversity

A summary of:
Schultze, Q. J. (2002). Habits of the High-Tech Heart: Living Virtuously in the Information Age. Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, MI, USA.
Chapter 6 - Striving for Cosmic Diversity

The Dossier Journal writes of Kandinsky's show at the Guggenheim: "The mature work stands on a deep faith in the inherent spiritual values of colors and shapes, telling us that, all along, the arrangement of these simple elements – not subjects – has produced the 'vibration in the soul' that is the great initial achievement of art. It is the artist’s task, Kandinsky believed, to 'set art free,' and the ultimate task the collective formation of a 'spiritual pyramid' that would 'some day reach to heaven.' Roll your eyes as you will at reaching heaven, the feeling of standing before these paintings is ineffable."

Schultze says, "Gelernter rightly argues that the computer scientists who design our everyday technologies should study the liberal arts, so that the work of their hearts, minds, and hands might produce artifacts of higher beauty that fill our lives with more joy and delight and that inspire us to reach higher" (161).

The main message of this chapter is that we should be listening to people other than technology developers when it comes to developing technology, because it affects us so profoundly (in the words of Archbishop Chaput, "these things... shape the soul" (160)) that it requires a more collective consensus about the appropriateness of these technologies in our lives. We should be asking spiritual questions. We should be listening to the wisdom of ancient traditions. The danger is that we are developing one-track minds with regards to the wisdom of various technologies: "As we become information rich, we also tend to fall into a moral myopia that excludes noninstrumental mental values from shaping cyber-endeavors" (142). As Paul Duguid said, "Information technology has been wonderfully successful in many ways. But those successes have extended its ambition without necessarily broadening its outlook. Information is still the tool for all tasks" (158). Can we not think a bit more creatively?

What this also means, then, is that we need a "more diverse notion of 'knowledge workers' that includes essayists, poets, playwrights, public intellectuals, clergy, and laypersons - all people who can imagine a society that values not only technique but also joy and good judgment" (142). "As the Archbishop of Denver, Rev. Charles J. Chaput, puts it, the 'information highway must not bypass humanity.' We need responsible leaders who will 'think deeply, not just about where we're going, but why we're going there'" (159). (As a sidenote: There is an undeniable prejudice in society to favor informational and technical ways of knowing over others (151). Intuition, for example, has no place in academic discourse; though if we paused to reflect, we would realize that it is only because of our intuition that we able to do any research.) Perhaps then we will begin to question whether the technological values of efficiency and control are really our values.

I think this quote is fairly revealing of a different problem (Schultze seems to be jumping around again), namely that technology is creating more and more soul-destroying jobs: "One Web worker says, 'The sad reality is that for all the well-deserved excitement the web generates, working on the web can be one of the least exciting things in the world, like being a cook at the Normandy invasion'" (154). Why can't we use technology to facilitate uplifting engagements? This is my quest for the next 3 years, anyway.

Being Authentic in a World of Spin

A summary of:
Schultze, Q. J. (2002). Habits of the High-Tech Heart: Living Virtuously in the Information Age. Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, MI, USA.
Chapter 5 - Being Authentic in a World of Spin

This chapter was somewhat less helpful, because it was full of the same old arguments about identities online being fake and harming the social fabric, blah blah (e.g.): "Cyberspace is one 'place' where people can create so many contradictory self-identities that they no longer have a coherent self and therefore no possibility for authenticity" (136). He does add some nuance to the argument in the sense that he articulates it as a moral problem with a religiously inspired solution: "If cyberspace is to avoid disingenuous persona-making, it must cultivate authentic communication anchored in shared commitments to truthfulness, empathy, and integrity" (117).

First about truthfulness:

Schultz writes that "McLuhan later transformed the concept of 'noosphere' into his own notion of the emerging 'global village,' a secular version of the Christian idea of the eventual unity of all believers. McLuhan imagined that the Almighty is present in technology, converting the world to a common faith" (119). The faith is in the belief that technology is wonderful, that it is our salvation. Jacques Ellul explained that symbol brokers create "explanatory myths," which tell us exactly why technology is good for us: "Regardless of whether they are true or false, these kinds of myths affirm our faith in information technology" (126). Perhaps I'm naive, but I didn't realize there were people whose job it was to be a symbol broker. I guess I thought - and still think - that we have elevated certain people to positions of authority based on charisma (although don't ask me to explain why Bill O'Reilly, for example, is charismatic - I think he's just really good at the Imperius Curse). These people are selected for elevation because they make sense for their time, i.e. they mesh with our growing understanding of the world around us. And when they speak, they confirm these preconceptions. It is a self-perpetuating, self-congratulating loop: technology is great.

I've been reflecting on this problem of authenticity/truth/trust a lot recently. There is no inherent trust in online relationships, and many people are working on the problem of how you can design artificial trust mechanisms into software/the Internet. One example is user feedback, e.g. Ebay. But even if we could safeguard our online relationships, all we are doing is removing the need to trust each other in more organic ways! There is something spiritual about trusting someone, I would argue. And it has nothing to do with whether other people have provided data points that show that this person is 98% trustable.

Next to empathy. "Empathy requires us to forego our own rhetorical agendas at times for the sake of considering others' interests rather than our own" (133). What it boils down to is again that technology promotes individualism and ultimately selfishness. The word comes down from the Greek empatheia, which means, "entering into the suffering, being 'in passion' with one another" (133). Schultze argues that in part the facelessness, the anonymity of the Internet makes it very difficult for us to experience empathy - I guess because we don't have a belief in the authenticity of those individuals who may be suffering: if my 'self' is not particularly real in this space, then other people are not particularly real either.

I shall end with this. Schultze, being random again, reminds us that "the Greek techne - the root word for 'technology' - is also the root for the word 'art'" (119). I wonder why it is that we don't treat technology development as an art; why it is devoid of this connotation. Would we be developing as quickly, without reflection, if we thought of technological development? What if we thought if it as a craft? - would we treat it with the reverence we should? - would we have a more spiritual relationship with the objects of our creation?

Laughing Ourselves to Humility

A summary of:
Schultze, Q. J. (2002). Habits of the High-Tech Heart: Living Virtuously in the Information Age. Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, MI, USA.
Chapter 4 - Laughing Ourselves to Humility

There are certain religious communities that eschew modern technologies (Amish, Shakers, etc.); many merely adopt a posture of reticence toward technology (Christians and others). We can label these people and anyone who is a bit wary of computers as a Luddite. But the point is, we have reason to be reticent. We have probably all experienced a technological failure that exposes our techno-arrogance: e.g. the computer dies and you haven't backed up a year's worth of work; the phone, which holds all your passwords, contacts, and schedules dies, leaving you lost and in a puddle of your own tears. As Schultze says, "The resulting frustration and fear should open our hearts to the need for humility" (104).

In this chapter, Schultze argues that:

1) Technological development is an exercise in human folly: "Our high-tech endeavors are riddled with foolishness masquerading as progress" (95). We think of ourselves as experts, but how little we actually know! As Schultze says, "Fools major in the minors" (94); this seems to be our wheelhouse, focusing on the minutiae of technological knowledge. "Such fools," he writes, "lack the whole of creation, and consciousness of our obligation to it" (95). I would phrase this concern differently: that we focus on detail, but we are losing our ability to think holistically. Holism, I argue, is one of the characteristics of a spiritual mindset.

2) We have to recognize the futility of our endeavors, because whenever we think we are solving a problem with a new technology, we are inevitably creating several new problems. I often talk about how while we persevere in the pursuit of lessening our burdens, we are counter-intuitively raising the expectations for how much work we are responsible for doing, thus making our lives more difficult (see John Thomas' work). Cultivating humility is to recognize that we don't control everything: "Although the technology that undergirds the information society is the product of much rational thought and remarkable technical achievement, its social nature and moral impact largely elude us" (94). And as Havel says, "we still don't know how to put morality ahead of politics, science, and economics. We are still incapable of understanding that the only genuine core of all actions - if they are to be moral - is responsibility" (105).

3) We'd be wise to fear our technologies, because "Recognizing the potential for moral as well as technical disaster, we need to accept the humility that comes with responsibility" (93). Reticence is therefore healthy because: "if we lack any technological reticence, we also lack responsibility" (107).

4) Humor is a useful way of fostering this humility, because it "fosters a proper sense of proportion, reveals our tomfoolery, and cultivates greater patience" (93). I liked this one: "'Without software,' says Barry, 'a computer is just a lump of plastic; whereas with software, it's a lump of plastic that can permanently destroy critical data'" (111). Laughing with people is a form of empathy; it is a variation on compassion (112).

An undersold point raised by this chapter is the idea that we need to be humble enough - and brave enough - to realize that we need to make changes... even if those changes are potentially enormous. "Once a human 'project acquires a certain size and becomes vested with human dreams of "progress" or "liberation,"' writes Vinoth Ramachandra, 'it attains a life of its own, dragging human beings and societies in its wake" (102). Should we not fight against getting sucked into the quicksand? Let's design a better cyber alternative.

And while sometimes I don't know why Schultze says things where he does - they seem random - he also makes an important point in this chapter: "Either we accept informational mythology as a viable religion, or we critique it from the vantage point of a nontechnological tradition" (103). This is, in a nutshell, my approach.

Seeking Wisdom in Tradition

A summary of:
Schultze, Q. J. (2002). Habits of the High-Tech Heart: Living Virtuously in the Information Age. Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, MI, USA.
Chapter 3 - Seeking Wisdom in Tradition

Schultze begins by mentioning the "simplicity movement," whose adherents quip, "Maintaining a complicated life is a great way to avoid changing it" (69). As much as we can rhapsodize about a simpler time, and even wish to return to it, not only can you never put that toothpaste back in the tube, but as Schultze says, "Slowing down our rate of retrieving and disseminating information is a necessary but insufficient step in our journey toward reclaming the habits of the heart" (69).

The point of this chapter is threefold:

1) We need religion as an anchor to a greater, more meaningful continuity; or to what Schultze argues religion creates/maintains: "an overarching metanarrative" (70). I am reminded again of Joel Mason's sermon about being participants in a story when we come to church. This chapter asks how we can possibly understand ourselves without understanding our history and that narrative. Tradition is not silly; it is truly important to our understanding of who we are. One definition quoted here is that "'tradition' [is] the 'living faith of the dead'" whereas "traditionalism" is the "dead faith of the living" (74). Schultze defines religious tradition as "a transcendentally framed and morally directed way of life that faithfully aims to rebind the broken cosmos from generation to generation" (75). The problem we have to reconcile with this view, however, is that fact that the world our ancestors was describing no longer exists; things are profoundly different as our understanding of the world has grown. But then the value of traditions is that they are "direction-setting 'maps of reality' that generations of wisdom-seeking communities of faith have already charted" (76). Simply put, "Without history memory, there can be no wisdom" (89).

2) We need to cultivate more advanced listening skills. Think about the extreme we have arrived at where we literally shout into the ether with tools like Twitter. We don't even presume anyone is listening to us. But what should we do? Forcibly silence the chatter? Schultze mentions attempts (successful ones!) to establish "Quiet Zones" in America: "Establishing these zones was not only a reaction against noise but also an action in favor of practices such as healing and learning" (77). (As Havel shows, having enforced silence and time for contemplation - being jailed for years - is a great way to cultivate depth of thought.) It is worth considering that monastic rule is not "'Do not speak' but rather 'Do not speak unless you can improve on the silence'" (78). This requires a combination of moderation and reflection. How can technologies support this notion?

3) "we are all responsible not jut for seeking virtue but also for passing it along to each generation" (71). For example, one concern is that "impressive messaging could potentially cut us off from tradition and unravel the tapestries of gratitude and responsibility that bind us to God, neighbor, self, and creation" (81). This third point is linked to the point I was making in my last post about the value of memory to society. Interestingly, Schultze goes on a bit of an unpredicted discussion about the importance of "caring" as part of being responsible. (More predictably, this evokes questions about sustainability and corporate social responsibility, which Schultze glosses over except to say that we need to care for God's creation.) One example of this caring that we can find on the Internet, which I personally quite like, is MS Softserve. This website was created in recognition of the emotional impact of information, which can derail a person who has recently been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. This website allows the user to judge the level of intensity of the information they can cope with receiving at the moment.

Again, I'm a bit wary of Schultze's faith in religion. He says, for example, "The root word religio means ‘to rebind.’ To act religiously in the world is to rebind the broken cosmos” (72). I might attribute such loftiness to spirituality, but I am reticent in applying it to religion, which is so complicated by politics and embittered by centuries of fighting with other religions. This is just one reason I recoil from talking about "religion" - as if you can meaningfully even speak of it as a coherent thing, when it is composed of such different traditions.

But I think this is a useful test for developing technologies: "Do they foster the joy and harmonious shalom, or do they sustain alienation, conflict, unhappiness, and injustice" (72)?

Wertheim at TED 2009

Interview with Margaret Wertheim

Here's a really great shorthand introduction to what Wertheim is all about:

Einstein's Spirituality

Taking a break for a moment, this is a great article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/krista-tippett/albert-einsteins-faith-wa_b_651592.html

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty -- it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves ... Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavor to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature. - Einstein