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Title: The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention by David F. Noble ISBN: 0-14-027916-4 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.57 (7 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Comment: Amazing how I could use the title "Religion of Technology" and counter Noble's thesis. Key to understanding this book is to grasp the milieu in which Noble writes: he wishes to utilize historical critical methods in deconstructing the evolution of technology. Fascinating idea, and his ideas are intriguing; but he is misguided. The key problem lies in the Cartesian dichotomy of spirit vs. body.
Noble argues that the spirt-man, through Christianity, emboldened western culture to utilize technology for salvation. One glaring defect in this argument is his inability to explain how Christianity departed from Augustine's view of man's sinfulness to Joachim's view that mankind could obtain perfection through his own efforts (technology). Unable to explain this, Noble's premise splutters on, lacking the foundation to prove his thesis that the spirit-man is behind technology. In reality, the body-man is the catalyst of technology.
The body-man is best portrayed as Goethe in the 19th century. Herald of romanticism, Goethe wrote with ease and genius -- a true creative artist who seemed to instinctively acheive greatness. The cry of romanticists was "get back to nature." Ironically, these body-people whose love of instinctiveness and the natural (Nature) fell into the trap of defining successful living as fulfilling 'bodily' desires. The delicious irony is that right around this era of romantacism western society underwent its captilistic industrial revolution. Fastforward to the neo-romantic movement of the 1960s. Here we have free love, drugs, etc. true body-orientation. Interesting how the decade of greed (80s) came around from these same '68ers'. Further, these 68ers created the capital to usher in an intense period of technological growth (contrast this to the earlier generation supporting NASA, and how bored we are with what NASA does now compared to Sony Playstation 2).
Approaching the excessively long-winded, I will conclude with this: the body, not the spirit, is behind technology's latest thrust (19th-21st century). Unfortunately, Mr. Noble could not step out of the 'modern' condition to grasp the greater reality behind technology. We've believed the myth of the jock (body) vs. nerd (spirit), thinking this is reality. Harmonizing body with spirit, something which hasn't been done since Descartes, will provide the proper understanding of technology. I'm still waiting for a great book on technology.
Rating: 4
Summary: People are giving this book less credit than it deserves....
Comment: This is a good book and a bit of a fun read though in its nature-- in what it tries to be-- it alienates itself from whatever group is intended to be its core audience. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile and well-written; though I gather than some, from its reviews, have had some problems with its difficulty and subject matter.
This is meant, I think, to be a popular book rather than an academic text. The author has his story-line and sticks too it fairly well: as with any 'popular' book, if you dig from one discipline into its minutia, you're going to find flaws and biases. Books can be great still. Because it is a popular book dealing with more or less of an arcane area, it does have a tendency to ramble between lots of stuff that most people generally haven't heard of: if you sit back and let the whole picture come into focus, I have found, in the end, you're still left with a worthwhile read.
To the reviewer who said that this book only focused on the development of technology and its interplay with religion in the West: it could be argued that only in the West could the author's thesis be proved: religious devotion was a cause of technolgical development and not vice-versa (i.e. religion/religious groups reacted to technology in the form of change in doctrine, practice, etc.: like the development of the different 'modern' branches of Judaism in the nineteenth century OR changes in Islam toward fundamentalist, anti-Western belief caused partially by technology... I can't think of any better non-Western examples...)
This is a worthwhile read; I'm pretty sure that its worth the fifteen dollars or whatever it costs. Buy it if you're in the mood for a challenging, good read on this sort of subject matter....
Rating: 4
Summary: Theology as the Source of Technology in the West
Comment: This book traces the origin of the Internet and the attitudes of its developers to Protestant theology and its antecedents in Christianity. Instead of goodness entering the world through God's omnipotence, Protestants believe that they are required to build God's kingdom in this world. The drive in northern Europe for technological enhancements to life derives from this.
A book that offers an interesting insight on Noble's ideas is 'Collective Intelligence' by Pierre Levy. This book examines the social impact of Internet technology and proposes a set of ideals that should be used to guide a society using it. Levy tries to show how his set of ideals would obtain the most benefits from society from this technology. An interesting part of the book occurs when Levy compares the mode of live in an Internet society with that derived from Catholic ideals. He recounts mediaeval Catholic philosophy on the means by which God's insight creates the world. God can exist by his contemplation of his own existence since he is the essence of all things and out of his contemplation springs angels which can contemplate their own existence but need other things to exist. There are 10 ranks of angels each created either by God's or the next higher angel rank's contemplation of themselves. The contemplation of the lowest rank of angels creates our world.
The nub of this is that the world is top down. The ideal is at the pyramid of existence and goodness derives its meaning from the top. Levy contrasts this with the new conception of the Internet as shown by Noble. The lowest rank which is our world can create a new world above it. In this case, it is the lowest level of connectivity of the Internet. This new world is good in so far as it enables the inhabitants of our world to flourish. The lowest levels in cyberspace can create higher levels of existence with no limits on the number of levels which corresponds to the ranks of angels. Goodness flows up these levels from the real world in direct contrast to Catholic theology.
These two books support each other. Levy offers this Internet world as an ideal and contrasts it with the Catholic ideal. Noble examines it as an historical process and notes its derivation from Protestantism.
These are two very interesting books well worthy of attention.
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Title: The Technological Society by JACQUES ELLUL ISBN: 0394703901 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 October, 1967 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: America by Design: Science, Technology and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism (Galaxy Books) by David F. Noble, David Noble ISBN: 0195026187 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1979 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism by Merritt Roe Smith, Leo Marx ISBN: 0262691671 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 02 June, 1994 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
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Title: TechGnosis : Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information by ERIK DAVIS ISBN: 060980474X Publisher: Three Rivers Press Pub. Date: 16 November, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Technics and Civilization by Lewis Mumford ISBN: 015688254X Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1963 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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