Wendell Berry has been a hero of mine for a long time. And while I'm far too entrapped in the electronic world to back out on computers, this piece of his brings up some excellent points about how our ethics tie into the lives we lead and the work we do—not to mention the process of questioning the physical things we choose to acquire.
"My final and perhaps my best reason for not owning a computer is that I do not wish to fool myself. I disbelieve, and therefore strongly resent, the assertion that I or anybody else could write better or more easily with a computer than with a pencil. I do not see why I should not be as scientific about this as the next fellow: when somebody has used a computer to write work that is demonstrably better than Dante's, and when this better is demonstrably attributable to the use of a computer, then I will speak of computer with a more respectful tone of voice, though I still will not buy one."
It's a fascinating read in full, as are the letters it generated and his subsequent responses. And yep, I understand the irony of posting this via Blogger and PowerBook. But such is the amoral way of the Internet, ain't it.
Photo above is Shasta from the I-5.
Today's music is "Wonderful Life" by the Felice Brothers.
No comments:
Post a Comment