In the spirit of Marshall McLuhan, we know that changes in technology do not simply add more of the same kinds of things that we already had lots of, to the same world in which all those things were what they were. Changes in technology "change everything", including transforming the old things even when they leave them "untouched".
The example I previously used was a bit lacking: I would say that, in 2000, it simply was not possible for a physician to *rush* to attend to a patient --> in his horse and buggy. The same horse and the same buggy that in 1900 would have been the fastest way for the doctor to rush to the patient would, in 2000, probably result in the doctor losing his license. But in today's Washington Post there was a far better example: Advances in medical technology have been found to be a major factor in lowering the homocide rate. How? By transforming what previously would have been homocides into assaults where the victim leaves the hospital after a few days. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6728-2002Aug11.html No change in the perpetrators' intentions. No change in the criminal acts. But now the acts are no longer what they were, and the proof of the pudding is in the eating: the crime is now assault and not homocide. McLuhan's "the medium is the message" was really: The message of a communication medium is the change in the pace, pattern and scale which it imposes on life. Or, to sort of paraphrase Foucault: Technology is ontology. [Alas, it has proven easier to metamorphose murders into assaults than to disalienate labor....] Obviously, I was "struck" by the article.... \brad mccormick -- Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16) Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) <![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
