4.0369 Technology (2/45)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Tue, 7 Aug 90 20:53:19 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0369. Tuesday, 7 Aug 1990.
(1) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 1990 00:00:29 EDT (34 lines)
From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: myths, not historical references
(2) Date: Tue, 07 Aug 90 14:35 PDT (11 lines)
From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 4.0356 The Real World of Technology?
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 1990 00:00:29 EDT
From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: myths, not historical references
I don't know enough about medieval guilds to agree intelligently with
Skip Knox, but what he says about their oppressiveness sounds likely
enough. I am sorry, however, that he misunderstood my intent so
completely. The dichotomy I used was certainly not mine, rather a
fundamental distinction between two kinds of myths that are very useful
in understanding how we think but which mistakenly get told as history.
My intent was to separate from any Franklin-like argument the
misapplication of the edenic or golden age myth and rescue the cogent
observations on some very dangerous possibilities in our technological
life. I again urge attention be paid to the story of Daedalus, which is
really what Franklin's book circles around without saying so. Now here
surely is a myth the historicity of which no one will be tempted to get
distracted by. It tells tellingly, however, how the inventor in us gets
trapped by his own inventions. The sexual pathology in the allied story
of Pasiphae helps the tale of the Labyrinth really come alive with as
much psychological truth as one could ever wish for.
Sorry, and again too. This is not fair -- alluding to something so
tantalizingly -- but the whole matter really is all there, in that myth.
It never happened in history, but it keeps happening in the way we
relate to our gadgetry.
I do beg to differ on another point as well. The age of the craftsman
exists whenever a craftsman manages to do something right. The world has
probably always, or mostly, worked against his or her success. It
certainly does now. Am I wrong to think that scholarship and
craftsmanship have much in common?
Willard McCarty
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------197---
Date: Tue, 07 Aug 90 14:35 PDT
From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 4.0356 The Real World of Technology? (1/66)
Dear Willard: If you saw, no you would not have seen it, Pres Bok's
parting interview as outgoing Prexy of Harvard, you would be interested
to learn how many ways he says the university merits an "F" in its
relations to society and its problems! Everyone comes in for his
pessimistic and scathing condemnation. If you had a mail address, I
would clip it and mail it to you. Jascha Kessler