by Cody Cook (@CantusFirmusCC)
Author and New Journalism pioneer Tom Wolfe dismissed fears about the technological developments of the mid-twentieth century, opining that it’s only English Lit. intellectuals “and Krishna groovies who try to despise the machine in America.” Wolfe represented the sentiments of technophiles everywhere, expressed with a roll of the eyes at nostalgic oldsters who shake their fists at smart phones like their parents did at programmable VCRs. But is it out-of-touch alarmism to contend that technology is not in fact value-neutral but carries with it a power and point of view that shapes its users?
In our highly technological society, there are supposedly only two approaches to innovation: enthusiastic adoption or reactionary Ludditism. Implicit in such a binary is the notion that what is old is necessarily bad and what is new is inherently good.
