In Praise of Technology

All kinds of bad things are happening as a result of technology; to hear people talk, you'd think the devil himself had turned up on the motherboard.

Yes, people are forgetting how to use cursive script because they don't write much any more except by keyboard, but somehow this is like lamenting the loss of washing clothes by hand--it may be an artesanal skill, it may have cultural value, but most of us do so much better with the washing machine.  It is truly a shame that people no longer write letters, because letters have been the record of history itself.  But in the age of information, your main worry is that you don't show up on YouTube.  There are plenty of people writing about history and contemporary politics, and information--good, bad, and mediocre--flood us now. 

It makes me think of the European enchantment with Mexican Indians and their culture.  Europeans come over to study them, to wear Indian jewelry or clothing, to adopt political stances about conserving the Indian cultures and mores, but those mores are responsible for the abject, hunger-causing poverty of these tribes, for the total subjugation of women in these tribes, and for the almost universal lack of higher education even among the boys.  If that is the price to pay for a few Indian dances and some woven baskets, it isn't worth it by a long shot.  I have visited these tribes, and know whereof I speak.

Technology has permitted my mom to stay in touch with dozens of friends and family; now that she is seriously ill, it has enabled me to stay in touch with my brother by iPhone.  That alone has been worth the trip for me.  So let's hear it for technology.  It doesn't mean you can't write a letter in longhand or learn how to spell and punctuate, so what's the problem?