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.
"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.
A sentimental favorite among my books is the 1946 Modern Library edition of Frost's Collected Poems, which opens with the great essay "The Constant Symbol." Just last week, I was rereading it, so, first of all, thanks for pointing me to the earlier talk, which I don't think I'd seen before. (And will need to read several times to grasp, as with everything Frost wrote.) It fleshes out a couple of sentences in "The Constant Symbol" that I've always liked but that at the same time seemed gnomic: "Poetry is simply made of metaphor. So also is philosophy — and science, too, for that matter, if it will take the soft impeachment from a friend."
It seems that Descartes' error lay in failing to be sensitive to where the metaphor breaks down. If you were to write an intellectual history of the internet, you would find this error recurring all the time - people using metaphor not to "tame" their enthusiasm (as Frost puts it) but to fuel it. And then you end up using the machine for all sorts of purposes that it is completely unsuited to.
You’re welcome - Frost is someone I always feel is productive to wrestle with, and “gnomic” is a good way to describe him!
And I think you’re right about Descartes. Which, to be fair to him, he wasn’t a poet, and therefore wasn’t necessarily accustomed to thinking metaphorically about metaphor. It wouldn’t be until several centuries later that George Lakoff and Mark Johnson would write Metaphors We Live By, which argues that all thinking (and language) is fundamentally metaphorical. It’s a compelling book, and quite a fun read if you’re into that sort of thing. (Which I am.)
If "The machine’s manipulative power is secondary to, and dependent on, the pleasure it provides" and "We’re the machine’s makers before we’re its victims" than it makes me think who controls the machines is the gap to be addressed...
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.
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.
A sentimental favorite among my books is the 1946 Modern Library edition of Frost's Collected Poems, which opens with the great essay "The Constant Symbol." Just last week, I was rereading it, so, first of all, thanks for pointing me to the earlier talk, which I don't think I'd seen before. (And will need to read several times to grasp, as with everything Frost wrote.) It fleshes out a couple of sentences in "The Constant Symbol" that I've always liked but that at the same time seemed gnomic: "Poetry is simply made of metaphor. So also is philosophy — and science, too, for that matter, if it will take the soft impeachment from a friend."
It seems that Descartes' error lay in failing to be sensitive to where the metaphor breaks down. If you were to write an intellectual history of the internet, you would find this error recurring all the time - people using metaphor not to "tame" their enthusiasm (as Frost puts it) but to fuel it. And then you end up using the machine for all sorts of purposes that it is completely unsuited to.
You’re welcome - Frost is someone I always feel is productive to wrestle with, and “gnomic” is a good way to describe him!
And I think you’re right about Descartes. Which, to be fair to him, he wasn’t a poet, and therefore wasn’t necessarily accustomed to thinking metaphorically about metaphor. It wouldn’t be until several centuries later that George Lakoff and Mark Johnson would write Metaphors We Live By, which argues that all thinking (and language) is fundamentally metaphorical. It’s a compelling book, and quite a fun read if you’re into that sort of thing. (Which I am.)
If "The machine’s manipulative power is secondary to, and dependent on, the pleasure it provides" and "We’re the machine’s makers before we’re its victims" than it makes me think who controls the machines is the gap to be addressed...
"This is what you want, this is what you get..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8Ne9sRcSrM
Interesting to compare with what Rotten sang in the Pistols: "Don't know what I want, but I know how to get it." Probably a better recipe for being.
Deleuze / Guattari 101
Name-dropper.