Commenting on my comments

I see my last comment has been deleted. Did you report the broken equipment? Or was it easier to go home and write several hundred words whining about it, than send a two line email reporting it...maybe the technology isn't the problem?

By Anonymous on Another one of my anti-tech rants, plus a frightfu... on 11/2/10

The above comment following my anti-technology rant has just been brought to my attention by a friend who wishes to remain anonymous – for now, anyway. I confess that I don’t always keep up-to-date with my comments. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate them – I very much do, and I have to thank Elizabeth for being such a reliable, frequent and astute commenter. I should also add that many of my friends comment by emailing me directly.

I’m no great fan of those who hide under the cloak of anonymity (something that should be reserved for alcoholics, overeaters, chronic gamblers and sex addicts), unless it is clear to me who has written it. So to those friends who have written anonymous comments in the past, don’t worry – I know who you are. But there’s good reason why many publications even refuse to publish or respond to anonymous comments or letters. However, aforementioned friend actually suggested I provide a riposte to the comment, and I didn’t want to let a good friend down. So I shall, in the interests of fairness and to clarify anything that might have been misleading.

(and I’m not sure about the comment being deleted – maybe Anonymous has one or two problems with technology. Remember kids, in order to post a comment you actually have to click on ‘post’!)

I’ll start with the most salient point: it might not have been easier to go home and whine (sic) about it, but it was certainly a helluva lot more fun! That’s half the point of a blog anyway, for people to complain and crap on about, well, crap. Clearly, Anonymous didn’t read all the way through to end - which I can’t blame him for seeing as the post was on the dull and soporific side – where I mentioned that by nature, Teflers are a bunch of whingers. It’s in our blood!

Besides, who wants to hear lovey-dovey things like ‘oh, I love life, I love technology, I love birds, isn’t the world such a wonderful place, blah blah blah…’ Human nature dictates that we want to hear the bad stuff, hence the reason news is so rarely good.

I’m only going with what my audience wants here. In surveys I’ve conducted amongst my readers, a whopping 81% said they wanted more ‘rambling anti-technology diatribes that lull us into torpidity’, followed closely by those who want to hear, in intricate detail, about my ‘trips to cafes, what kind of coffee I like the most, how I like to boycott every other café I visit, and what I like to do with the coffee cup when I’m finished’. That came in at 72%. As for ‘well-crafted, structured, concise, witty, to-the-point, cultivated reflections, followed up with erudite commentary and carefully thought-out descriptions of the quirks and foibles of where I’m living, chock-full of unnecessarily big vocabulary words’, well that only got a measly 7%. So that option is out.

Though come to think of it, a letter to someone who cares might be a good idea. To Whom it May Concern: Can you please do something to prevent the sun from shining on Saturday between 10.30 and 16.35 so that my students can actually see the IWB? Or can you please give me candles or mounted wall lights so that the students can see what they are writing, since in order to be able to see the IWB in one classroom I use, I actually have to turn all the lights off? I mean, the ambience and camaraderie in there is great, but it’s not terribly conducive to learning.

Okay, I admit: I have attempted to solve the issues. And here’s what I’ve been told: ‘try’ rebooting the computer. That ‘should’ work. Well, sometimes it does, but it also takes about half an hour. Honestly, is that the best solution?

Moreover, this is a bit like the 'ticking time bomb' scenario scenario used to justify torture. Let me attempt to make one of the most tenuous, ridiculous analogies of my life. This probably won’t even make sense to me.

I’ve never bought into this scenario, which basically states that it is okay to use torture on a suspected terrorist because there could be a bomb ticking away, set to go off in downtown [insert your city here] in the next 15 minutes. Thus, the only way to save lives is to torture this sonofabitch and get the whereabouts of the device out of him. Great, except for one fatal flaw in the logic: this is a completely hypothetical situation which can only be proven true in retrospect. We can’t use this justification for every case on the off-chance that there’s a bomb hidden away somewhere. After the fact, if there were a bomb, defenders of torture can point to this fact and proudly say, ‘we told you so!’ But this will only ever be something that can be applied retroactively after the situation has unfolded. Thus, it’s a lousy argument. Much like mine here.

What the hell’s the connection? If I’ve got a problem in the classroom, then I’m potentially SOL for that lesson. I can report the problem afterwards, but that doesn’t do anything to solve the problem that shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Look, once or twice or every now and then is tolerable; the trouble here is that it happens more often that not. That’s unacceptable.

Seriously, though, I’ve been waiting a long time for a moment like this, where I can try and make a parallel with the ticking time bomb scenario. Hell, I’ve been desperate. But just when I’d given up all hope, the opportunity presented itself on a silver platter. I’ve been waiting so long for this, there’s no way I was passing up such a golden opportunity. I can now check this off my list of things to do in life.

Not to big myself up or anything, but I’m pretty good at improvising and thinking on my feet, and yes, I do have backup plans. So I can worm my way out the situation. But if I’ve got a whole lesson devoted to presentations, and some students are giving Power Point or IWB presentations, and if something goes wrong…well, then we’re fucked. And a phone call or email after the fact won’t help matters in the slightest.

For an interesting and at times downright terrifying look at the potential pitfalls of technological ‘progress’, give John Gray’s Straw Dogs a read. You’ll come away from that collection of essays convinced that technology is more a force for harm than good. And Gray is one of the sharper minds around, and certainly no luddite like me.

To reiterate, my general premise is this: when it’s working technology has its benefits and does make life simpler. But when it’s not, which happens way too often, then it can wreak havoc on our lives. There’s good reason why the looming threat of cyber-terrorism is considered one of the greatest current security challenges today. Some of the doomsday scenarios being talked about are no laughing matter. (And it all starts with IWBs!)

Lastly, and mercifully, I’m violating one of my promises here, by wading so deeply into the mire of shop talk. For my own sake, I want to get away from blabbering on about work, and so in the future, barring some bizarre and unbelievable situation in the classroom, I shall refrain from dragging work into this.

[I must also make one thing very clear: my anti-technology rant was in no way, shape or form an attack on my place of work – far from it. I’m very happy where I work, and believe it or not, I am thankful that the opportunity for using technology does exist. 100% of the blame rests squarely on technology itself – its very existence is the problem.]

[Okay, so I’ve just blown my whole argument out of the water. Do I like technology or not?]

Thanks for the comment, Anonymous. But next time, please do reveal yourself. I’d even be happy to engage in a bit of debate, if you so desire.

In closing

Two excerpts from Alain de Botton’s The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work:

I felt keenly the painful psychological adjustments required by life in modernity: the need to juggle a respect for the potential offered by science with an awareness of how perplexingly limited and narrowly framed might be its benefits. I felt the temptation of hoping that all activities would acquire the excitement and rigours of engineering while recognising the absurdity of those who, overly impressed by technological achievements, lost sight of how doggedly we will always be pursued by baser forms of error and absurdity…

The pre-scientific age, whatever its deficiencies, had at least offered its members the peace of mind that follows from knowing all manmade achievements to be nothing next to the grandeur of the universe. We, more blessed in our gadgetry but less humble in our outlook, have been left to wrestle with feelings of envy, anxiety and arrogance that follow from having no more compelling repository of veneration than our brilliant, precise, blinkered and morally troubling fellow human beings.