Helhaven - computer aided decision making?
Burke's consideration of the effects of the computer in Towards Helhaven is interesting because it is chronologically positioned at the very beginning of the personal computer's presence in the market. Indeed, most of Burke's references to the computer have to do with government owned punch-card machines. His discussion of the 'cult of new needs' is predictive of, for example, the explosion of consumer technologies that have followed the personalization of the computer. Indeed, having a cell phone, digital camera, ipod, and pda is hardly unusual or excessive. Burke's consideration of planned obsolescence is helpful here in the case certainly of the cell phone which as to be replaced at least every two years. (In the alternative, I was at my grandmother's this weekend and noticed that she has had the same rotary dial phone in her living room since the early 80s). The invasion of technology into our lives has certainly occurred, but not entirely in the way in which he predicted. For example, a national ID system has still not been implemented and remains quite controversial. His description of a government-computer run vocational system made me curious about the ways in which the computer does direct decisions in our lives. For example, what would Burke make of on-line dating services where members are "matched" to each other by the computer?
What Burke does not anticipate or articulate are the freedoms associated with the personalization of technology and the rise of eco-chic. To the extent that personal computers and the internet have fosered new kinds of personal expression (personal/family websites, social networking software, blogs) or decreased the cost of communication and the production of written messages. I would argue that the computer has increased some of these personal freedoms. Indeed, the internet has created a new environment in which new kinds of creative genius can flourish and fail dramatically. The entrepreneurial chaos that the period of the internet boom is certainly not the control-system Burke described. The rise of eco-chic is also absent from his predictions. It is not clear to me how effective this new life-style will be effective in countering pollution or natural resource depletion, but we may yet see.
Detecting Motives
Your question about how Burke would see online dating is an interesting one. Computers attempt to match participants based on certain characteristics, but can the computer get at the participants' motives? I'm not sure what Burke would say about this, but a computer likely wouldn't be able to do the type of motive analysis he strives for, i.e. a full tracking down of implications. You also mentioned pollution, would Burke see online dating services as examples of pollution in personal relationships? I read recently how the divorce rate from online relationships has gone up. Was this negative implication seen by the creators of online dating sites, or were they only interested in the money? Can divorces be seen as an example of social waste that continues to pile up? I realize that is a harsh statement, but when mentioning waste, perhaps Burke didn't mean just physical/material waste but rather non-physical/material waste that people may see as potentially disrupting the social order.
You make good points. Your
You make good points.
Your mention of "government owned punch-card machines" made me start thinking about my dad's accounts of what computers were like when he was in the Air Force. That would have been in the sixties, which is a little earlier than Burke is writing, but I got to thinking that maybe it provided context.
My dad always described them as these massive machines that took up rooms. The buildings were air conditioned because of the heat the machines put out, but my dad always points out that it was for the health of the machines, not that health of the people, that there was a cooling system.
It's not a terribly helpful anecdote, perhaps, but I got to thinking that maybe a glimpse at the attitude in years past toward technology might provide some sort of useful context.
And now I'm going to switch topics...For my midterm paper I wrote about justification, but tied into that concept in ATH is the idea that people have a need to "earn" things and if they do not "earn" what they have--if it's given to them instead--they become alienated. As I was reading about the 'cult of new needs,' I was wondering if we can apply that concept to it as well.