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Nicholas Carr's avatar

I agree that who controls (and designs) the machine needs to be a crucial focus — and that has been a focus of public attention (though without much actual action, at least in the US). But we also need to look at the role that all of us play as integral components of the machine. We provide the signals that shape the machine's outputs. We can't avoid self-examination, as those signals (and indeed the outputs they generate) are markers of our own desires.

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Michael Mercurio's avatar

A couple of thoughts on this, the first (and foundational) one for me coming from Robert Frost's talk "Education by Poetry," which you can find here in full: https://moodyap.pbworks.com/f/frost.EducationByPoetry.pdf

"What I am pointing out is that unless you are at home in the metaphor, unless you have had your proper poetical education in the metaphor, you are not safe anywhere . Because you are not at ease with figurative values: you don’t know the metaphor in its strength and its weakness. You don’t know how far you may expect to ride it and when it may break down with you. You are not safe with science; you are not safe in history."

Building on that (albeit indirectly), I find Neil Postman's exploration of the breakdown of the machine/mechanism metaphor for biological systems in Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology to be a helpful anchor, given that he is one of the few I've read who recognize what Frost meant. Reynolds' insight is deeply useful (and here I'll confess to being a big fan of Reynolds' work overall) in recognizing that the metaphor's fundamental power comes not so much from comparison (the strength of simile) but from juxtaposition - and, as I am always telling my poetry students, juxtaposition isn't opposition.

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