Cultural apocalypse

Do any of us know anything at all?

I came to this thought twice this week, once as I was skimming an article for a class and the second time as I was playing my computer game (or “smoking crack”, as I like to call it)

While I was failing to read my article, I wondered if no one ever really read anything for their classes or for work. If not, do we ever really know anything, even in subjects we are supposedly knowledgeable about? How about the authors of the articles and books?

(??) No one is technologically advanced. There are people who are completely inept (like the joke about the ”cup holder” that was actually the CD-rom) and there are people who are capable of using their computer. There are people who are very good at learning programs and op systems. There are people who can troubleshoot computers both in hardware and software. There are people who can set up the computer and troubleshoot hardware problems. There are people who can set up communication between computers. Then there are people who can program the computers to think better and more efficiently. There are people who can create the actual software that the users use. There is hardly anyone who can do all of these things. While the Internet’s society could be anarchic, technology as a whole is socialist. Not one component is knowable to any one person but each individual contributes to the whole.

Culture and Civilization

Can there be a technology culture?

Perhaps. We need to first find out what culture is, and then see if the idea fits.

Here is the definition of culture from my very large dictionary:

1. 1. the quality in a person of society that arises from a concern for what is regarded a s excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc. 2. that which is excellent in the arts, manners, etc. 3. a particular form or stage of civilization, as that of a certain nation or period: Greek Culture. 4. development or improvement of the mind by education or training. 5. the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group; the youth culture, the drug culture. 6. Anthropol. The sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another. 7. Biol. a. the cultivation of microorganisms, as bacteria, or of tissues, for scientific study, medicinal use, etc. b. the product or growth resulting from such cultivation. 8. the act or practice of cultivation the soil; tillage. 9. the raising of plants or animals, esp. with a view to their improvement. 10. the product of growth resulting from such cultivation –v.t. 11. to subject to culture; cultivate. 12. Biol. a. to grow (microorganisms, tissues, etc.) in r on a controlled or defined medium. B. to introduce (living material) into a culture medium.
   

I have included every bit of the definition because of the importance of the influence that our culture has had on the word itself. The ideas of changing and studying (entries 7 through 12) illustrate the anthropological view of study, where the observer changes the subject. We must remember that everything we study is changed when we study it; figuratively and/or literally.
Also, some of the entries have to do with the arts, which make them very relevant to what we are trying to find out.

However, first I will address the entries that have to do with the idea of culture as it exists within a certain group of people, entries 3, 4 and 5.

Entry 3: “a particular form or stage of civilization, as that of a certain nation or period.”

This first entry describes culture as a part of a whole, as a period of time of a civilization. Can technology be a civilization? If we look at the Internet we can see the beginnings of a civilization, perhaps. So, what makes a civilization? We will look at the meaning found in the dictionary :

1. An advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society, marked by progress in the arts and sciences, the extensive use of record-keeping, including writing, and the appearance of complex political and social institutions.

Before we get into the dictionary definition, we must take into account what is missing from the entry, and that is Place. In order to have a civilation with a culture, they must take up space or be somewhere. If we talk about a subculture, they co-exist with the rest of the dominant culture. So, can we find out if technology culture is a subculture or a emerging dominant culture? Perhaps, if we explore the idea of civilization.

When I think of the civilization in which technology culture resides, I begin to think about the Internet. Now, obviously, we have had technology since human-kind has begun to think (I am thinking about the invention of the wheel). So, technology culture existed before the internet but now resides in the internet. (has this happened before in "real time"?) So, let's get back to the Internet as a place with a civilization. When we think of a place we think of somewhere physical that we can move around in. Can we move around in the Internet? We can move around through information on the internet, certainly. We can't touch anything, unless we can count reading words and seeing images as touching something. There are also chatrooms in which we can talk to other people, not necessarily touch them, but we can talk to them. And who do we actually "touch" in real life? We shake hands, surely, and we make eye contact, sometimes, but can we have these things on the internet? Let me point you to the direction of multi-user dimentions or MUDs, where you can exist in a text world where everything exists in text form. This is a version of human contact that exists on the internet. You purchase space on a server to recieve email (from a "mailbox") and where you can build your webpage (where you have your "home" on the internet) So, in a sense, we can view it as a place.

Does it have a civilization? The definition calls for an advanced state of intellectual, cultural and material development in human society. There are places of intellectual development on the internet, such as online universities. Material development? Are there things created on the internet that only exist on the internet? Like I mentioned before, there is the internet provider that gives you access and space. At the moment I can think of internet games, where you purchase time on a game where you interact with the game and in turn interact with people through the game. You can buy and sell space to keep information, like a blog. If we talk about economy, I could allow Blogspot to advertise on this page, and I will recieve some of the money the advertisers pay for you to see their advertisement. There are online games in which you can make money in the game and sell it on Ebay (an amazing notion - actually quite dangerous to real-world economy). Perhaps it does not have a working economy, but it has a developing economy. Government? Politics? The internet, if viewed as a place or a civilization, may be a functioning example of Anarchy. If it is a place, it has no government, no unifying ideal.

On the internet, we deal in information and information only. If you exist on the internet, you exist as information. Which is why the information you find on the internet is often inaccurate. It's like going up to someone on the street in the real world and asking them "what is the exact circumferance of the earth" and expect them to have the correct answer.

The Question

Technology culture is at the forefront in this society, becoming a necessity. The television is an art form that is very dominant in our culture now, but is often ignored to continue to explore more holistic or “traditional” forms. We have computer screens to see reproductions, but insist on printing them out, we just barely touch on a multicultural curriculum while students are chatting online with people from Bangladesh. Children can’t focus because they can find information instantly with a click of a button, they’ve become used to sensory overload. How can they sit and watch one person for a whole hour when they could be surfing the Internet while watching television? Many educators want to know how to fight this problem, how to contend with the growing phenomenon. Can we change as educators to adapt to these needs? Are we fighting a cultural apocalypse or are we eating the dust of the information speedway?