Bob Mondello wrote a stirring piece entitled, “Our Media, Ourselves: Are We headed For A Matrix?” In this article we can see that Mondello makes many claims, one of which is his belief that the as we as humans advance technologically in society we become fearful of the possibility that we will lose our identity and thus our humanity. If the objects that help us define who we are become smaller and more compressed in the digital age, will that hold true for our identity as well? Mondello makes an argument that holds a truth that is not beautiful or desirable but truth none the less. Fearful thoughts of Mondello’s such as, “… the media in people’s lives are supplanting the people in people’s lives, and about what’s getting lost as the world goes digital – all those cool album covers we had as kids, the stacks of paperback sci-fi novels, the toy soldiers. Won’t the next generation be isolated without them – cut off like Vashti, starring at screens all day?” are not uncommon of the older generation when viewing the children of the modern age. But is this fear warranted? Is this really what could become of humanity, a generation of Vashtis?
For some the answer is a resounding false. Liz Reeder commented, “I don’t see the difference between a record and an mp3, a hard copy book or an ebook other. I’m pretty sure the content is the same, and the art is still art. It’s just a lot more efficient and organized, now.” Mike McIntosh also believes in a different idea than Mondello, saying he prefers, “… an evolution toward simplicity (not sterility or isolation) where the greatest value is placed on our emotional and relational connections (which takes up no space) and the quality of our ideas.” There is a tragic flaw to these arguments though that sadly removes the physical human element from the equation. What is art but its medium, its depth, its emotion? If all viewed from the same screen the art is the same, pixels on a screen, not a human manifestation of emotions or thought. Also Ms. Reeder fails to see that humanity by nature is not completely organized and efficient, it is possible to imagine yet physically impossible to obtain. Mr. McIntosh also forgets that the body and mind cannot and should not be separated. If one believes that ideas, and emotional relationships are all that matter then we are becoming dangerously close to a world such that personifies E.M. Forster’s, The Machine Stops. At the end of the story, as the Machine is dying, the narrator shares these insights.
“…beautiful naked man was dying, strangled in the garments that he had woven...And heavenly it had been so long as man could shed it at will and life by the essences that his soul, and the essence, equally divine, that is his body. The sin against the body – it was for that they wept in chief; centuries of wrong against the muscles and the nerves, and those five portals by which we can alone apprehend – glozing it over with talk of evolution, until the body was white pap, the home of ideas as colourless, last sloshy stirrings of a spirit that had grasped the stars.”
Mondello’s idea that our society is fearful of losing its identity makes a sound argument when looking at what the advances in technology have done thus far to the world. Technology reduces needs and experience. This reduction extends to humanity as a physical presence. While many can attempt it so far it has been impossible to capture humanity on a screen. Should we be afraid? Yes, if only for the fact that your reading this on a screen right now.
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