[Air-l] How is the Internet bad for us?

[Charles Ess]

Hi David,

One of the elements missing from your list, and not yet mentioned by others
in their excellent and helpful responses, is - impact on conceptions of
knowledge, wisdom, and how we acquire these.

These topics - technically, of epistemology - for better and for worse may
be of interest only to philosophers.  If so, ignore the rest of this.

There are two central books here -

Albert Borgmann, Holding on to Reality: The Nature of Information at the
Turn of the Millennium, University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Hubert Dreyfus, _On the Internet_. Routledge Press, 2001.


I've written an essay that reviews and comments on Borgmann's central claims
here, along with some reference to Dreyfus:
Borgmann and the Borg: Consumerism vs. Holding on to Reality, Techné:
Journal of the Society for Philosophy and Technology 6(1), 2002.
<http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v6n1/ess.html>

And,at the risk of violating all sorts of copyright laws - a sketchy
document is available at
http://www.drury.edu/ess/notesondreyfus.html

Most of the document is devoted to clarifying for my students what
Kierkegaard and Dreyfus mean vis-à-vis knowledge gained through the web and
the Net.
As I hope these notes help clarify - by all means, by drawing on
Kierkegaard's taxonomy of knowledge (aesthetic / ethical / religious),
Dreyfus' taxonomy indeed heads us in the direction of the metaphysical,
though not necessarily religious.
Briefly, the religious stage of human wisdom and existence for Kierkegaard
involves a level of commitment and risk not found in the aesthetic and
ethical stages.  As Dreyfus puts it, our most important commitments

Šare neither the ones that I arbitrarily choose nor the ones that I am
obliged to keep because of my social role. Rather, these special commitments
are experienced as grabbing my whole being. When I respond to such a summons
by making an unconditional commitment, this commitment determines who I am
and what will be the significant issue for me for the rest of my life.
Political and religious movements can grab us in this way as can love
relationships and, for certain people, such vocations as the law or music.
(19)

Of course, this sort of argumentation will drive social constructivists and
postmodernists nuts - but from my perspective, the arguments are critical
and I'm by no means convinced that the s.c. / p.m. schools have clearly won
the day on this.

So, to put it in a nutshell:
with regard to your question - if Borgmann and Dreyfus are right,
then, 
if we increasingly identify knowledge, information, wisdom, and learning
with what is available via CMC to the exclusion of all other forms of
knowledge, wisdom, and learning,
we run the risk of losing not simply whole kinds of knowledge and wisdom
that do _not_ fit through the pipelines of CMC (at least in their current
forms), 
but further, 
we risk losing both the abilities and awareness of these abilities for
gaining and refining such knowledge and wisdom -
knowledge and wisdom that historically in both Western and Eastern
traditions are characteristically presented as centrally important to
becoming human and living humane lives.

Before anyone gets too riled up - please note that having said this, I also
make as much use as possible of distance learning techniques in my own
teaching; it is clear that the Internet, the Web, and CMC more broadly have
extraordinary capabilities for doing extraordinarily good things, etc. -
these matters are not necessary either/or's, in my view.

O.k. - hope that helps?  Cheers,

Charles Ess

Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies
Drury University
900 N. Benton Ave.              Voice: 417-873-7230
Springfield, MO  65802  USA       FAX: 417-873-7435
Home page:  http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html
Co-chair, CATaC: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/catac/

Professor II, Globalization and Applied Ethics Programmes
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway
http://www.anvendtetikk.ntnu.no/pres/bridgingcultures.php

Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23