Technology is a topic I often touch on in this blog* because first, it’s directly relevant to my book in-progress on Far West Texas, and second, the digital revolution we’re all living through is so dizzyingly, all-at-once enchanting and consternating. Where is this all taking us? Mars? The Stars? Or, will we all end up like the pudding-like protagonist of E.M. Forster’s eerily prophetic short story “The Machine Stops”? How does this digital revolution connect to / echo with technological change in the past, for example, with the advent of the printed book, the telegraph, radio, telephones, cinema, television? With other technologies, from the railroads to airplanes? Or for that matter, the bow and arrow, or say, or the clock? And how is the digital revolution, in fact, or not in fact, fundamentally different from what has come before? Most importantly, how to live a human life, a good and creative life, say, this writer’s life, that is not hijacked by technological imperatives, above all, the constant pull to the glamor of the screens? (And I mean “glamor” in its original, occult sense.) So many questions… Sometimes some of the literature begins to answer them.
Doug Hill’s Not So Fast: Thinking Twice About Technology
Doug Hill’s Not So Fast: Thinking Twice About Technology. That fuzzy blurb on the cover is from Jerry Mander: “This book is the most comprehensive, provocative, and entertaining review of technological thought, expression, impact, and controversy that I have yet seen.” Yours Truly concurs.
The first and major thing I appreciated about Doug Hill’s Not So Fast is that he provides an up-to-date general overview of the literature on the history and the philosophy of technology. Francis Bacon, Henry James, Martin Heidegger, Aldous Huxley, Marshall McLuhan, Lewis Mumford, Langdon Winner, Norbert Wiener, Jacques Ellul, Ray Kurzweil, Kevin Kelly, Stewart Brand, Steve Jobs–and an army more– they’re all there. Secondly, in engaging, butter-smooth prose throughout, Hill tackles, as he quotes philosopher Albert Borgmann, “the pervasiveness and consistency of [technology’s] pattern.” I mean to say, Hill has accomplished a rare combined literary and intellectual feat.
Here’s the catalog copy for Not So Fast:
There’s a well-known story about an older fish who swims by two younger fish and asks, “How’s the water?” The younger fish are puzzled. “What’s water?” they ask.
Many of us today might ask a similar question: What’s technology? Technology defines the world we live in, yet we’re so immersed in it, so encompassed by it, that we mostly take it for granted. Seldom, if ever, do we stop to ask what technology is. Failing to ask that question, we fail to perceive all the ways it might be shaping us.
Usually when we hear the word “technology,” we automatically think of digital devices and their myriad applications. As revolutionary as smartphones, online shopping, and social networks may seem, however, they fit into long-standing, deeply entrenched patterns of technological thought as well as practice. Generations of skeptics have questioned how well served we are by those patterns of thought and practice, even as generations of enthusiasts have promised that the latest innovations will deliver us, soon, to Paradise. We’re not there yet, but the cyber utopians of Silicon Valley keep telling us it’s right around the corner.
What is technology, and how is it shaping us? In search of answers to those crucial questions, Not So Fast draws on the insights of dozens of scholars and artists who have thought deeply about the meanings of machines. The book explores such dynamics as technological drift, technological momentum, technological disequilibrium, and technological autonomy to help us understand the interconnected, interwoven, and interdependent phenomena of our technological world. In the course of that exploration, Doug Hill poses penetrating questions of his own, among them: Do we have as much control over our machines as we think? And who can we rely on to guide the technological forces that will determine the future of the planet?
I wish I’d had the foresight to take a photo of what this book looked like before its repair: the spine torn off and hanging to one side by threads. It’s the ninth edition of the “Fannie Farmer” Boston Cooking-School Cook Book published in 1951, not a valuable book in the rare book market, and this specimen less so for its decades-old gravy and butter stains. But it is a tremendously valuable book to me because it was my mother’s. I took it to my local bookbinder and, for about the price of a pair of Keds, voilà:
Restored for use by my local bookbinder.
It strikes me as curious that in all the many writers workshops and conferences I’ve attended over the years I cannot recall anyone ever even mentioning the craft of book binding. But what skill it takes to do it well! And what a difference it makes! With its repaired binding, this dear workhorse of a book has been given the dignity it well deserves.
What has this to do with a writing workshop? Two things.
First, as a writer I’ve come to realize that the quality of the book’s design, paper, and binding is immensely important, for its gives the book its presentation– like a frame for a picture or the dress for a bride– and it also gives it the sturdiness it requires to survive over time.
Second, I’ve come to believe that as a writer it matters why and how I treat my books because respect for them is respect my own endeavor. Generally speaking, I have learned to try to keep them out of the sun, I avoid eating or drinking while reading them, and I take care not to fade, fold, bump or tear any dust jackets. However, that doesn’t mean I’m ever and always fussy about my books. I’ll toss out battered old mass market paperbacks, and I often donate books. And some books I go ahead and give myself liberty to attack! I mean in a good way!
A more recent example: Doug Hill’s superb Not So Fast: Thinking Twice About Technology. When I ordered Not So Fast I guessed it would eventually become an important collector’s item, so I shelled out the clams for the University of Georgia Press first edition hardcover from bookdespository.com. Alas, when it arrived I found that the dust jacket had been badly treated (um, actually it looked like the forklift left greasy tire tracks on it). Translation: as a physical object my copy has little to zero value. Because I was so anxious to read it for my own work-in-progress however, rather than ask bookdepository.com for a replacement, I took this as a welcome opportunity to go ahead and mark it up with my notes. So: maltreated my copy may be, both in the warehouse and by my scribbles, it’s a book that is tremendously valuable to me as a working writer. (And I warmly recommend it to you, dear reader, by the way.)
I ordered the book from bookdepository.com and alas, the dust jacket arrived looking like this….
…so I gave myself permission to go ahead and mark it up. This one stays in my working library.
How do you treat your books? And why? These are questions I didn’t think to ask myself for many years. These may not be trick questions, but they are tricky questions, for they necessitate distinguishing the book as a thoughtform from the book as a physical object, and they also require self-awareness and clarity in one’s intentions, as both a reader and a writer.
WHITE DOG
The other day my copy of visual artist and writer Katherine Dunn’s latest book, White Dog, arrived. So obviously made with love and joy, White Dog is one of the most exquisite books that I have ever seen. Dear writerly readers, it is self-published. And I do not believe that any commercial publisher would have, nor could have, done justice to her vision.
UPDATE: See the Q & A with Katherine Dunn for this blog here.
MORE TO COME ON SELF-PUBLISHING
Those of you who have been following this blog well know that since early 2019 I’ve been migrating selected posts from the old Google platform. I have a batch of posts on self-publishing that I’ll be getting to in the coming weeks.
To be clear, I’m not a champion of self-publishing per se; I sincerely respect and value what a good publisher’s team (editor, copyeditor, book designer, sales reps, publicist, back office) can do. Most of my books have been published by traditional publishers or university presses, and indeed, I aim to place my recently completed collection of essays and my book in-progress with a publisher (wish me luck). But without making much effort to find a publisher (for good reason, which I go into in the relevant blog post) I self-published Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution. In addition I have self-published several Kindles, including this longform essay about the Mexican literary landscape. I remain open to the idea of self-publishing again in the future. In the post-covid economy, where we can expect smaller catalogs and fewer publishers, that may turn out to be the increasingly more realistic route. We shall see. More anon.
P.S. You can find the archive of workshop posts migrated-to-date here. Again, I offer a post for my workshop students and anyone else interested in creative writing on the second Monday of every month.
