The Luddite's Guide to Technology

"Tonight we're going to party like it's $19.99." Or at least one headline read. The technologies we use, and the decisions we make about how we use them, have a lot in common with the global financial crisis. But decisions we make on a smaller scale add up, too

The title "The Luddite's Guide to Technology" is quite deliberately ironic. The content, a work of Orthodox mystical theology, is not ironic, and is a discussion of spiritually disciplined use of today's technology. The discussion is meant to provide a roadmap and provoke reflection.

"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil." Thus the Star Wars movies have Obi-Wan Kenobi speak of Darth Vader.

We are not cybernetic organisms with a half-robotic body like Darth Vader, but there is a real sense in which we are more machine now than man, twisted and evil. Those people who spend much time with nature become nature-like people. Those people who spend much time with technology become technology-like people, and there are hints of this in how a teenager can see loss of cell phone privileges as an ultimate deprivation.

This collection begins "Religion and Science Is Not Just Intelligent Design vs. Evolution;" if the work is about technology and faith, "Religion and Science Is Not Just Intelligent Design vs. Evolution" sets the stage in looking at the Frankenstein-ish role science has expanded to claim in reaches one might not think of as scientific. A broad sweep is found in Technonomicon: "Technology, Nature, Ascesis," which offers a series of short chapters and begins a discussion of technology and faith proper. The large-scale view is zoomed in to make a close study and dissect one of the more gruesome heart of an innocent-looking music video that is quite an eye-opener and has helped gain quite a following: "Veni, Vidi, Vomi: A Look at, 'Do You Want to Date My Avatar?'" (If this works as a highly viral music video, which it does, there are profound implications.) Continuing on with "Plato: The Allegory of the... Flickering Screen," which revisits Plato's most important of profound Socratic dialogues in light of a society based on flickering screens. "Religion Within the Bounds of Amusement" offers a satire of what happens when people let technology and its apparent promise be the driving force in religion. It is followed by the theme recurrent in technology and technological society, "The Damned Backswing." Finally, it includes the ironically named "The Luddite's Guide to Technology," the climax of the collection, which looks at length at different technologies, the contours of their use, and what it may mean to use technologies well or poorly. "Do not store up treasure on earth" casts considerable suspicion at best on simply amassing such treasures as third world economic conditions in the first century would allow; this curb is more, not less, relevant to what treasures on earth are open to us now. The lesson does not only apply to monks; the rest of us are called to a detachment, and "The Luddite's Guide to Technology" is an invitation to this detachment.

Table of Contents

"Religion and Science" Is Not Just Intelligent Design vs. Evolution

Technonomicon: Technology, Nature, Ascesis

Veni, Vidi, Vomi: A Look at, "Do You Want to Date My Avatar?" "Plato: The Allegory of the... Flickering Screen?"

Religion Within the Bounds of Amusement

The Damned Backswing

The Luddite's Guide to Technology