Nothing To See Here

Sorry for the light posting - I'm crashing on a piece, and bleary-eyed from the World Series. While I recover, go read David Kirkpatrick on the religious right's semi-crack-up, if you haven't already; also Theodore Dalrymple's fine City Journal essay on the new atheism; any number of things in the new Claremont Review of Books; and Terry Teachout:

I suppose we all reach a moment in our lives when we lose interest in the new, and I suspect that moment comes sooner for technology than for art. For now I seem to be staying fairly open to new things--my experience as a blogger suggests as much--but I have yet to send my first text message, nor does my somewhat superannuated cellphone contain a digital camera. On the increasingly rare occasions when I feel the need to take a picture of something, I buy a disposable film camera, the postmodern equivalent of a Brownie, at the corner drugstore.

Today a friend walked into my office, all abuzz over some new online service or gizmo - let's call it "Z." He tried to describe to me what it does, failed, and said: "Oh, it's like a much slicker version of Y." I responded, "What's Y?" He said - "Oh, well, it's the newer, more popular version of X." I said: "What's X?" Which suggests that I'm well on my way to crossing the Teachout threshold.

And that reminds me - as a public service announcement, I should mention that while I have a Facebook account, I have never ever used it for anything (except once to look at someone else's Facebook page), and frankly I don't even know my own password. So if you've asked me to be your friend or otherwise acted friendly in the Facebook realm, I'm not ignoring you: I'm just ignoring, you know, the modern world.

Comments

"I'm not ignoring you: I'm just ignoring, you know, the modern world."

Often it’s worth ignoring. Even something as commonplace as the video DVD player has been oversold. Sure the picture and sound quality is a better - but my old VCR never shut down in the middle of viewing. (& became impossible to bring back up) It never froze in the middle of a scene and 25% of DVD's gotten from the video store did not need to be returned because they had been scratched or abused beyond watching.

Posted by Fitz | October 29, 2007 2:02 PM

I'm a similar age to you and I've found it's happened more swiftly with celebrity and music than technology (though I'm not exactly a technology fetishist). About 60 per cent of the time I spend with the television on now involves me going "Who ARE these people?" and casting about with a look that is at once confused and deeply irritable.

Of course the true sign of advancing age is the point at which you start informing people with whom you are watching a relatively old film or television programme that various of the actors involved are dead now.*

*A variation on this theme is when you start pointing out thet they are gay.

Posted by Anthony | October 29, 2007 4:18 PM

Ross, thanks for the Dalrymple pointer. Loved it.

Posted by John | October 29, 2007 5:33 PM

i have facebook for the same reason! and most other social networking aside from linkden. if people want to contact me i have a big enough web footprint that you can just use google.

Posted by razib | October 29, 2007 9:39 PM

I was invited by so many of my friends (after graduating law school) to be linked to them via "LinkedIn" that I gave in and signed up. I don't know what it does. I don't know what it's for. I'm well aware of the concept of networking, but just having a bunch of various people "linked" to you doesn't seem that valuable to me. But I didn't want people to be offended that I didn't really care about being linked to them, so I relented.
I think a lot of modern technology and Internet fads are like that. It's like high school - everyone's doing it so you must too.

Posted by out of it | October 30, 2007 8:34 AM

Dalrymple’s elegant essay combines valid critique and logical error (his language of purpose argument is an example). But here a comment only on two of its other features, its condescension and incuriosity. Not all atheists agree with Harris’s absurd and frightening attack on freedom of conscience; indeed, his countenance of torture was denounced by a famous science writer in that obscure outlet, The New York Times Book Review, as well as by left-of-center voices like Alternet. His view on this matter, in other words, should not be taken as standard or necessary atheist doctrine, as Dalrymple seems in his triumphant conclusion to want us to do.

Not only does Dalrymple suggest the atheists lack charity but also that they lack deep sources of meaning (one’s belief in “something not merely higher than himself, but higher than mankind [sic]”). But why? Neither here nor elsewhere in the essay does he consider and reject alternative sources of meaning that might inspire moral action or evoke happiness, such as love and friendship (he even evokes love in another context, acknowledging its intensity!), or democratic political activism on behalf of a more free, more just, more caring society; or artistic, scientific, or mercantile endeavor. He simply asserts the need for a belief in something higher than humanity. For Dalrymple, the only perspective that might lead one toward atheism, apparently, is adolescent narcissism. I don’t criticize him for disagreeing with atheism, but for apparently assuming his stance alone can achieve much in the way of wonder and appreciativeness, or for failing to try to understand why certain existential questions drive some thoughtful people (not all, of course) toward atheism.

Posted by Robert Mineer | October 31, 2007 9:57 AM

Robert Mineer: Did you happen to notice that Dalrymple is himself an atheist? He is not attacking, or making generalizations about, "all atheists", as you seem to imagine. He is concerned with the "neo-atheist" authors of the books he mentions. Whether they have as much in common as he says they do is another matter.

Posted by Clive Crook | November 2, 2007 6:36 PM

Quoting Dalrymple's silly piece :"It can be summed up in Christopher Hitchens’s drumbeat in God Is Not Great: “Religion spoils everything.”

What? The Saint Matthew Passion? The Cathedral of Chartres?"

Did he even read these books? Hitchens deals with the beauty and value on works of religious literature, etc quite straight-forwardly. A small blemish amidst a horribly-scarred whole, but damning just the same.

Posted by Soma | November 7, 2007 4:43 PM

buy uk viagra http://magic-pills-swicki.eurekster.com/Buy+Viagra+Online buy viagra online buy online pharmacy viagra

Posted by buy line viagra | November 15, 2007 7:46 AM

http://airline.websited.net/air/map.html >best time to purchase airline tickets

Posted by american airline fare | November 18, 2007 4:32 PM

cheap buy soma

Posted by boards buy soma | December 6, 2007 12:37 AM

order online soma

Posted by + online soma | December 16, 2007 10:28 AM

order online soma

Posted by + online soma | December 16, 2007 10:28 AM

online soma buy rx

Posted by usa online soma buy | January 2, 2008 9:56 PM

want delete your site from spam bases? mail your domain name - andydelay[at]gmail.com.

Posted by xyuyho | January 26, 2008 5:57 PM

want delete your site from spam bases? mail your domain name - andydelay[at]gmail.com.

Posted by xyuisy | January 26, 2008 7:15 PM

I haven't been up to much these days. Such is life. I've just been letting everything happen without me these days, but I don't care.

Posted by hot dudes | March 3, 2008 4:57 PM

Not much on my mind right now. Today was a complete loss. So it goes. I've just been sitting around waiting for something to happen. I've basically been doing nothing , but I guess it doesn't bother me.

Posted by hugereal boobs | March 4, 2008 7:27 AM

Nothing notable going on. My life's been generally dull today. So it goes. Not much on my mind to speak of.

Posted by ohboys clips | March 10, 2008 8:53 AM

My life's been pretty dull lately, but I guess it doesn't bother me. I haven't been up to anything recently. Maybe tomorrow. I've pretty much been doing nothing worth mentioning. I haven't gotten much done these days. Pretty much nothing seems worth thinking about.

Posted by orgy sex party | March 10, 2008 1:19 PM

Women are not, are fairly portrayed in the media

Posted by black gays pic | March 13, 2008 5:34 PM

I've just been letting everything pass me by. Shrug. Basically not much notable going on lately.

Posted by gay porninterracial | March 20, 2008 9:52 AM

Peace in the Middle East is obtainable with US and The European Union intervention

Posted by gaybears | March 27, 2008 7:11 AM

Not much on my mind lately, but that's how it is. My life's been dull these days, but such is life. I haven't been up to much recently.

Posted by gaybearshardcore | April 1, 2008 7:36 AM