Thursday, August 9, 2012

Anthill of Concentration

In The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, in the chapter, The Church of Google, he addresses the dilemma of the imbalance between the industrial and pastoral ideal of thought. The industrial ideal refers to quickly accessed knowledge versus the pastoral ideal of deep, open-ended thought. Nathanial Hawthorne, a novelist who sought deep concentration, had blocked the entrance to an anthill resulting in chaos and confusion to the small, black inhabitants. He was then distracted by the flickering shadows by the sun and became focused on the sky. His actions of distraction show “the shattered ruins of a dreamer’s Utopia.” Hawthorne was unable to focus and find his deep state of concentration with a mind developed on the Net’s distractions. His Utopia of open-ended reflection was banished with the arrival of new technology. Today, however, is the internet our Utopia? With the internet’s level of corruption on our minds, are we “programmed” to believe that technology and the internet is the source of our ideal form of society?
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1 comment:

  1. Mikaela FerrellAugust 10, 2012 at 10:06 AM

    Internet plays a major role in our society alongside with television and all other types of media. A utopian society is based on the ideal of a classless society with no evil, just good. In a way, one could even describe to be somewhat paradisiacal. Many find it to be useful, while others see it as damaging. One main point of utopian societies is the equality among the people both financial and socially, as well as knowledgably. This way no one is too rich, too popular, and too smart. The Internet is like a utopia in this sense. When you research a topic, all the information someone knew, you now know, making you equally as knowledgeable on that topic as the one who published the information. This is why so many turn to the Internet for information rather than reading a book or an article. They now can proclaim they know information on a topic without saying particularly where they got it from or how the learned it. In addition to this, when one becomes dependent on the Internet for research, they are now succumbed to depend on it for everything such as news and ideas, ultimately making themselves an average carbon copy rather than an individual. This leads to problems like gossip, corruption, and manipulation. Overall, this whole Internet issue is a domino effect, lining up more and more pieces that are on the verge of falling.

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