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Scott's avatar

"Disconnected from a more direct experience of a wider world, we crave information about it."

This was a great, and unsettling, insight. Great because it rings true, but unsettling because it caused me to realize this aspect of my daily experience. The great irony of technological progress is that it, having taken care of our material needs, renders us bored on our couches. Though we feel like we are living in an era of great social transformation (which we seemingly are), most of our weekends are spent quietly indoors, seated or lying down in front of our screens-- perhaps we go to a restaurant, where we again are seated and served food prepared for us. So much of our lives today happens while sitting down! What else is airplane travel but breaking time and space boundaries while sitting down? There is not much else to do but talk or be entertained-- Kierkegaard said this about his culture more then a century ago-- which is funny, because social media and the IPhone are communication technologies, and ensure that we can talk and say more to more people with higher frequencies. I'm drawing from Ross Douthat's piece in the NYT on our age being decadent. So it does seem to me that Mike is right to say that our appetite for information at least partially stems from our disconnect from the world. We don't have much of a connection to our physical surroundings. Most of us are in some degree the leisure, aristocratic class that is not required to sweat or struggle with bodily labor, but is also haunted by the possibility that the life of leisure lacks the rush and immersion of those classes that must work with their hands and bodies. Disconnected from the sense of fulsome contact with life that bodily activity provides, we chase immersive experiences via our technologies or entertainment (concerts, trampoline parks, VR, video games, Tik Tok, fitness centers and gyms, theme parks, etc.) We also crave documentaries about all sorts of topics, both foreign to our experience (Tiger King, celebrities, mountain climbing, etc) or about things that are fundamental (like food); we Google things or ask Siri or look at Wikipedia reflexively. All of this while seated on our couches.

Though I have not read the Forester story, the characters' obsession with hearing ideas made me think of what the book of Acts said about the Athenian Greeks (when Paul preaches in Athens), that they did nothing but listen to and debate new ideas.

Question: Being alienated from our material environment and sometimes our own bodies, how should we proceed without becoming anti-modern and Luddites?

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David Simpson's avatar

“does this make me more human or less human?"

I think this is the key test, that we need to apply to every choice we make. And the essential point that Forster is making, is that to become disembodied, detached from our physical existence in this particular point in time and space, in this body, is to become less than fully human. It seems the interesting thing about our current situation is that many of what are in fact distractions, are denied us - work, consumption, mere moving about, society - and we discover (I am discovering) how paltry and shallow digital distractions are - I have started turning Netflix films off before the end, which I have never done before, not because they are bad or boring, but just attenuated, flat, two dimensional. Interacting with my extended family, admittedly through Zoom, is more human. Walking alone through the countryside. Cooking an elaborate meal. Meditating - facing the reality of the present moment. Doing an absorbing, physical, creative activity. Society is distraction - not to be confused with real community, which many are discovering ; the encounter through the letterbox with a hitherto unknown neighbor delivering food, for example. And Forster’s story is extraordinarily prescient - I can’t believe I haven’t read it before, I’m a great fan and thought I’d read all his fiction. Thank you very much for this

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