When you plug something into a wall, something is getting plugged into you

When you plug something into a wall, [something] is getting plugged into you.

-Neil Postman & Charles Weingartner, Teaching as a Subversive Activity, p. 7

Postman was fond of saying, following McLuhan, that when you add new technology to an environment, you change the environment. Hence the big idea of media ecology. If you add an XBOX to your living room, you don’t just have your old living room plus an XBOX. You have a new living room – a new environment. Something fundamental in the environment has changed that will affect the total atmosphere/ecosystem.

The idea that when you plug something in, it gets plugged into you, is a helpful summary of this concept. When you plug your smartphone in – when you put it in your pocket – you don’t have you plus a smartphone in your pocket. You have new version of you.

This is not always bad (and Postman never claimed it was), but awareness is key. I often quote the GI Joe PSAs I grew up watching – Knowing is half the battle.

Anxiety from Lack of Stimulation

We are wired to crave the temporary satisfaction from writing e-mails, crafting tweets, returning calls, downloading music, playing games, checking out websites, sending text messages, and taking photos of our food. They are the hooks that enrapture us. They are the casino slot machines that keep us moving from one machine to the next, ultimately resulting in our anxiety when we are left to face the world unstimulated.

– Matt Knisely, Framing Faith, p. 13

I relate to this line of thought, especially lately. It is odd that having nothing to do can cause anxiety, but it happens. Boredom should be the least stressful thing in the world, but when you’re bombarded with constant light, constant bells and whistles, it’s hard to decompress. Can you face the world when you’re not stimulated?

Relational Junk Food

But our society has begun to treat our relational needs much the same way we’ve come to treat our physical needs. When we’re hungry, rather than take the time to cook a well-balanced, filling meal, we rush to grab something out of the freezer that we can quickly nuke and then eat while watching TV or finishing up some work. And when we’re relationally hungry, so often rather than sitting down with our children or spouse to hear about their day or setting up a dinner date with a good friend, we open Facebook or Twitter and peruse through the recent posts of the day, stopping to click ‘like’ or shoot off some quick replies. Or we look to see if a picture we posted on Instagram earlier that day has been commented on much – and if it was, that temporarily fills us…until we close our computer and crawl into bed with the same dissatisfied, empty feeling that we went to bed with the day before…

-Matt Knisely, Framing Faith, p. 12

I like the analogy of social media as the relational equivalent of a frozen dinner thrown in the microwave.

Sanctification in the Technopolis

Since I’m not writing much these days, here’s a link to a talk I gave recently on the subjection of technology in relation to Christian sanctification. If you’ve been around the blog for a while you’ve seen me write on this a good bit. This is the first time I’ve condensed much of this information down into a talk.

You can listen HERE or watch below:

Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”

The Sovereignty of Technology

The United States is the most radical society in the world. It is in the process of conducting a vast, uncontrolled experiment which poses the question, Can a society preserve any of its traditional virtues by submitting all of its institutions to the sovereignty of technology?

Neil Postman, The Conservative Outlook, from Conscientious Objections, p. 107

I don’t think Postman phrases his question perfectly. The question should probably more along the lines of ‘Can a society preserve any of its traditional virtues as it submits all of its institutions to the sovereignty of technology?’

When posed that way, the question becomes a little more tricky. First, we have to ask the question of whether or not technology has truly become sovereign in our culture. Does technology have supreme and ultimate power? I answer yes and no.

Technology has become sovereign in the sense that we elevate its worth and often declare it to be infallible. Technology has not become sovereign in the sense that they are generally, as McLuhan said, ‘extensions of man.’ They are means through which we express our own self-conceived sovereignty, extend our reach, increase our comfortability, and impose our will and desires on others. In other words, to paraphrase 1 Corinthians 13, they allow us to inflate ourselves and impose ourselves on others. In this sense, man is sovereign and technology is his scepter and herald.

But, again, Postman has a point. As has often been said, by Henry David Thoreau, McLuhan, and Postman himself, the danger is that we tend to become tools of our tools. And, as we do, to quote C.S. Lewis, when we turn something into a god, it will become a demon. When we make idols out of man-made things, God will give us over to our plunderers, and they will do what plunderers do: plunder (see Judges 2).

So the ultimate answer is, No, we can’t hold to traditional values as we submit our institutions to the sovereignty of technology. This has been demonstrated clearly in recent decades. But the problem is just as much with individuals as with institutions. And the problem isn’t really technology itself. Five hundred years ago all of the West’s institutions submitted to the sovereignty of the printed word on account of the newly invented technology of the printing press. Was that a bad thing? Did that ruin the culture? I guess it depends on who you ask. Haters of Martin Luther and Protestantism might think it ruined the culture. I do not count myself among them.

The problem is with our idolatrous desire to exalt gods that are no gods. Turn something into a god and it will become a demon. Technology under the lordship of Christ is technology kept in its place. But in order to keep technology under his lordship, we must be under it first.

I would also add that being a ‘conservative,’ in Postman’s thinking, means fighting to conserve tradition. That doesn’t equate to a lot of things modern ‘conservatives’ fight for. Anyhow, we must be careful that we don’t exalt ‘traditional values’ too highly either. Our culture’s traditional values are no god. They may be good or bad, and some are definitely good, but they are no god. Hence the need to constantly go back to the Word of God, which is always timely.

The Commercial as Sermon within a Cultural Liturgy

Television commercials are a form of religious literature. To comment on them in a serious vein is to practice hermeneutics (p. 66).

…The majority of important television commercials take the form of religious parables organized around a coherent theology. Like all religious parables, they put forward a concept of sin, intimations of the way to redemption, and a vision of Heaven. They also suggest what are the roots of evil and what are the obligations of the holy (p. 67).

The sudden striking power of technological innocence is a particularly important feature of television-commercial theology, for it is a constant reminder of the congregation’s vulnerability. One must never be complacent or, worse, self-congratulatory. To attempt to live without technological sophistication is at all times dangerous, since the evidence of one’s naivete will always be painfully visible to the vigilant (p. 69).

-Neil Postman, The Parable of the Ring Around the Collar, from Conscientious Objections

Postman probably wrote this essay some time in the 80s; mass digital media wasn’t in view. Yet I think the principle he espouses still stands and could be helpful.

A while back, I read James K.A. Smith’s book, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation. I didn’t blog about it at the time, because I fundamentally disagreed with one of the major premises of the book (not going there since it’s not the purpose of this blog). There were, however, things about the book that I found helpful; for instance, his parable of the shopping mall as liturgy. He premises that from an alien eye, without knowledge of American shopping rituals, the journey through the mall would appear as a religious, temple-like, experience. Much the same is the case for sporting events. I bring up this point of ‘cultural liturgies’ because it ties directly to what Postman was saying about television.

I think the idea of a commercial, whatever form it may take, as a sermon (a portion of our cultural liturgy), makes sense. Advertisements are meant to show a need, to evoke longing, and to point to where that need/longing can be met. It’s felt-need preaching. And if you don’t feel the need, you will by the end.

With that in mind, I think Postman’s paradigm is helpful. It would be an interesting study, I think, and an even better habit, to ask of commercials/advertisements the questions,

• What concept of sin is being put forward (what am I lacking)?
• What is the way to redemption being put forward (how can this product fill that lack)?
• What is the vision of heaven (or the good life) being put forward (how will my life change by buying this product)?

In addition to that, Postman hints at the doctrine of sanctification – What are the obligations of the holy? How may you this product help you live a ‘set apart’ life? What does this consecrated life entail?

Two Kinds of Reading that May Keep You from Reading

Steiner believes we have now passed through the oasis and reentered the desert, with the result that we shall be left with three kinds of reading. The first is reading for distraction – which is what makes the airport book so popular. The second is reading for information…The third kind of reading is a residue of the great age of literacy, now receding rapidly under the compulsions of the Age of Information. It requires silence, patience, a ready capacity for reflection, the training to be challenged by complexity and, above all, a willingness to suspend the distractions of the world so that reader and text may become a unity of time, space, and imagination…

Against Zuckerman’s Hope, there is Steiner’s Prophecy, which he expressed with an ominous briskness: ‘What about reading in the old, archaic, private, silent sense? This may become as specialized a skill and avocation as it was in the scriptoria and libraries of the monasteries during the so-called Dark ages.’

-Neil Postman, A Muted Celebration, from Conscientious Objection, pp. 54-55

Postman’s line of thought here ties in nicely with C.S. Lewis’ conception of (what I call) literacy vs. aliteracy. The issue in our day, in modern America, is not literacy vs. illiteracy, but literacy vs. aliteracy.

Those who read for distraction and information are not necessarily fully literate. Ironically, it is those very sorts of reading (for distraction and information) that may keep us from really reading at all.

Who Provides the Metaphors? Natural Mythology

I think it justifiable to say that in the nineteenth century, novelists provided us with most of the powerful metaphors and images of our culture. In the twentieth century, such metaphors and images have largely come from the pens of social historians and researchers.

-Neil Postman, Conscientious Objections, p. 15

In context, Postman is making the case that what has come to be known as ‘social science’ is really a narrative form of myth-building. This has continued on into the twenty-first century to be sure.

Where do you shelve Malcolm Gladwell? Is his work some form of ‘science?’ He deals with facts and statistics, right? Actually, he is a story teller. And he uses facts and statistics in order to support certain narratives. It’s not fiction, but it’s not really non-fiction either. Yet somehow it sells as a form of social science. What is Gladwell doing that fascinates us. I’ve read nearly half-a-dozen of his books, and I don’t think I’ve really learned anything from them. I’ve taken the narratives with me, but I don’t feel that I have a better grasp of real reality for having read him. If I want reality I’ll read Charles Dickens, or The Odyssey, or The Wind in the Willows.

This is not to say that the so-called social sciences have no value. They do. They can certainly have value. I started to say I had learned valuable things from my 15 college hours of psychology. But then I realized I actually haven’t. Bad example. It’s just bad stories for the most part. Especially Freud and Skinner. You remember the one about the kid who stopped breast feeding too early? Or about the mouse that learned to push a lever? Or about the Cat in the Hat with two Things? I’ll take Dr. Seuss. “A person’s a person no matter how small” is better than anything I got from my psychology classes. Anyhow.

Postman argues against the title ‘social science.’ He thinks it is misleading. I agree. But, of course, I think that science itself is pretty much always built on narrative. We won’t go there for the moment. The first important thing I want o note here is that he deems social science as ‘moral theology.’ I think natural mythology (or perhaps personal mythology) might be a better term.

The second important thing to note is that we have to figure out why it is that the symbols once supplied by fiction are now supplied by such down-to-earth mythologizing. We were not content that made up stories should serve as symbols of who we are; we now have to have real stories made up to form some sort of mythological narrative. Forgive the post-modernish me; I don’t have answers, just questions.

My hunch is that Postman was right in Technopoly in his point that Science speaks with the voice of a god in our culture. ‘Thus saith Science’ is the mark of infallibility. If one wants to speak authoritatively about anything, one must use the language of Science to do so. Therefore if one wants to create a convincing narrative, one must at least give the appearance that it is scientific.

Ironically, Amazon lists the Postman book I am quoting from under the categories of ‘Social Science’ and ‘Sociology’ – two of the very categories he is arguing against.

Five More Questions to Ask of Technologies

I’ll warn you ahead of time that this post is pretty much for me. I’m such a selfish blogger.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about four questions we should ask of our technologies. Andy Crouch provides five more:

(1) What does this cultural artifact assume about the way the world is?
(2) What does this cultural artifact assume about the way the world should be?
(3) What does this cultural artifact make possible [that wasn’t before]?
(4) What does this cultural artifact make impossible (or at least very difficult)?
(5) What new forms of culture are created in response to this artifact?

-Culture Making, pp. 29-30ff

You could remember these with MAR:

• Make possible/impossible
• Assume is/should be
• Result

Now let’s be reminded of the four basic questions of Marshall McLuhan (as summarized by Mark Federman):

We used RODE to remember those questions:

Revive, Opposite, Displace, Extend:

• What does the technology revive?
• What is is the opposite that it may revert to? (I’m particularly fond of this one)
• What does it displace?
• What does it extend?

I like asking questions; and these are all good ones to ask.

Ignoring What You Notice, Noticing What You Ignore

The challenge is a tricky one: We must create an anti-environment so that we can ignore what we notice and notice what we ignore.

-Mark Federman, The Cultural Paradox of the Global Village

So, yesterday I mentioned the idea of purposeful ignore-ance: cultivating a life that intentionally ignores some things so that it can focus its attention on others. This is where the idea leads. We do not want to ignore things to the point that we become completely oblivious to them. Rather, we want to notice what we ignore while being able to ignore what we notice.

Federman makes the point that this demands the creation of an ‘anti-environment.’ If you are submerged in an environment, you will either not ignore what you notice or not notice what you are ignoring. That entails complete assimilation on the one hand or blind acceptance on the other. The one means that you buy in completely to the environment. The other means that the environment smuggles in its trappings right under your nose.