Okay, so I first posted about the CNN article and was going to leave it at that, but then decided that the Luddite v. Fetishist article was too good to just not say anything about. Personally, Bill Henderson is iggnorant and needs to open his eyes to the world around him. The entire dialouge, he did not make a single agrument that 1. made sense and 2. was legit. I honestly took nothing away from what he said. Barkow made his points clear; technology is good for several reasons, it is inevitable and approaching quickly, and finally that innovation is a good thing. His style of writing was totally understandable and it was funny. It kept me hooked. He also did an amazing job or revoking Henderson so-called arguments.
And I found it totally annoying how Henderson doesn't realize much of what helps to argue his case is done through technology. To me, he is a hypocrite. I don't think he understands that the pencils he uses are made by means of a machine, which may seem far fetched, but still, it is technology being used. I don't know, I could be totally iggnorant, but atleast I realize that technology is not, as Henderson believes it to be.
Okay and next, I would like to quote Barkow. "And what you'll find while drawing is that sometimes a pencil doesn't cut it. You might need charcoal. Maybe ink. And sometimes you need a computer. Eek! The chosen tool is the one that suits the artist's needs". The last line of that is what (to me atleast) summarizes and ties together Barkow's point that technology is good. To me, it means that it affects so many people everywhere. But the thing is, it affects them in an endless number of possibilites. Which is what I guess goes back to Henderson's pencil making machine. Henderson and Wendell Berry, who I also consider mass iggnorant, need to get together think about what they are saying, before they continue to make themselves, as well as the Lead Pencil Club look dumb.
So that's what I think. How about you?!
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When it comes down to the readings we had, I'm split in two minds...The technology fetishist part of me (I'm currently building my own desktop) pretty much agrees with you...as a rhetoric student, I want to isolate and argue against all these luddite's individual arguments. As a teacher of writing, though, it's imperative that I be as reflexive as possible...reflexivity is the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes, someone with a different point of view. I'd be no good to students who had differing viewpoints than mine if those differences in opinion cut off meaningful discourse. So, I want to give the Leadites the benefit of the doubt. I think there are some good arguments they could make...I just don't like THE WAY that they went about making the arguments they did.
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