Shift Happens? Whee!

One of my abiding interests concerns the philosophy of technology. Many philosophers, particularly the faculty of St. John's, mistrust science in general and technology in particular, voicing a sentiment Crichton discovered in writing his famous Jurassic Park - that technology serves primarily to increase the power of Man and it is frequently unclear whether Man will use his newfound power responsibly. As early as the Renaissance was the view promulgated in which the criterion for truth was scientific "success": that is, if I can make the cannonball land where I want it to - nowadays, if I can create the cell in the way I want - I know the truth. This infatuation with science continued all through the so-called "Enlightenment", with Descartes, Hobbes, and Spinoza all passionately enamored of science and technology (Rousseau was much less impressed but he is another story). But by the nineteenth century things were waning down, and the belief in Progress was waning. At the eve of the Holocaust, an old man named Edmund Husserl declared European science, including Einstein's relativity and Schrodinger's quantum theory, to be in crisis and in need of his philosophic theories to regain humanity. Leo Strauss was a student of Husserl, and many of Strauss's students are tutors at St. John's; the studentry thus shares a decided caution towards technology simply.

I am wary of things such as cellular engineering (making your own cells in a lab! Woohoo!) and even warier about the applications of such new knowledge; after all, the quickest applications have generally been ways to kill lots of people as soon as possible. But at the core, what Man desires more than anything else is power. Technology and science give him power over nature and power over Man. Thus technology will be universally embraced. Let's all get on board then! Perhaps not. But it is undeniable that it sometimes is cool, the steps made. Everyone knows the YouTube video Shift Happens. I have a more amusing video: Neato XV vaccuuming robot! It is cheap enough for purchase by almost any middle-class family and seems to work well. Unlike the Kindle, I do not go into paroxysms of rage when I look at it. But I do have some questions:

• Will it get stuck under furniture?
• Will it attack your pets?
• Will it connect over the Internet with all the others and poison all their owners so that the floors stay clean?

Questions of this sort serve to pique my interest, keep me from studying Hegel and Phenomenology, and otherwise occupy this busy Senior trying to make his (very) little way in a (very) large world.

Pics

Sorry so late in getting these out...

Congratulations, Zachary!

... winner of the 2009-2010 Student Leadership Award at Saul Valley Community College. Way to go, Zach!

Wien

Heute habe ich ein Praktikum in Wien bekommen! Ich werde in Informatik an U.S. Embassy arbeiten sein! Ausgezeichnet.

spread the awareness: DADT must go

So this year Obama has pledged to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, that asinine policy that helps perpetuate military homophobia. Unfortunately for a good friend of mine, it hasn't happened yet- and she's embroiled in a messy discharge case about whether being openly gay makes you unfit for military service. If you're "found out" to be homosexual, that's grounds for discharge, but apparently not if the upper ranks think you were trying to get out, and so keep you in as...what? Punishment?

Spread the awareness. Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a terrible law that contributes to the mistreatment and disrespect of gays in the military.

Her story can be found here and here.

Easter Thoughts: more than chocolate rabbits

" ... Imagine the sense of despair and hopelessness which plagued the continent of Europe in the darker days of Nazi occupation.... No amount of tinkering around with the subjective side of things can ever change the real situation which causes the sense of despair... Now think of the cross, and the resurrection of Jesus as breaking the power of evil. But how can we make sense of the fact that evil continues to plague us? Human history as well as Christian experience tell us of a constant struggle against sin and evil, in our own lives as well as in the world. There is a real danger that talking about the " victory of  faith"  will become no more than empty words.
     The victory won by Christ was like the liberation of an occupied country from Nazi rule. Life was lived under the shadow of a foreign presence. Nothing could be done about it.... but then comes the electrifying news. There has been a far-off battle. And somehow it has turned the tide of the war. A new phase has developed, and the occupying power is in disarray. Its backbone has been broken. In the course of time, the enemy will be driven out of every corner of Europe. But they are still present in the occupied country.
     In one sense, the situation has not changed, but in another, more important sense, the situation has changed totally. The scent of victory and liberation is in the air. A total change in the psychological climate results... and so with us now. In one sense, victory has not come; in another, it has. The resurrection declares in advance of the event God's total victory over all evil and oppressive forces... their backbone has been broken, and we may begin to live now in the light of that victory, knowing that the long night of their oppression will end." 
----from Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter, the Plough publishing house, 2003.

In the dead of winter, Spain seems another world away, but it isn't really all that long until my summer classes begin in Salamanca. The program I have been accepted to is offered through the Spanish Minsitry of Education (it was very cool to receive official acceptance from the Embassy of Spain!) and will consist of a group of 30 teachers from the US and Canada working towards a Master of Spanish Language and Culture. We will be in class 7 1/2 hours per day for five weeks, from the end of June through July, both 2010 and 2011 with other hoops to jump through in between (like, writing a thesis and taking 6 more related credits in the US.) All told it is a 500-hour commitment. Quite a lot to tackle at my age, don't you think?

Salamanca is a beautiful city with unusual architecture. Take a careful look at the figures carved in stone. They are in a quiet, peaceful convent courtyard but they are grotesque. Why on earth...??? A guide said, " The walls can indeed speak. It's just that we don't understand their language." What do you suppose these carvings are trying to say?

The other photos include the Plaza Mayor, rightly dubbed the most beautiful in all of Spain, and the monastery and church of San Esteban, where Columbus stopped by to discuss his ideas of navigation. The monks here in Salamanca got him the appointment with Isabella, and the rest, as they say, is history.