Back from the Dead

On Tuesday I brought Kurt Cobain back from the dead.  I sensed his presence...along with Jimmy Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Elvis.  It happened in the middle of Gen 300...I told the students that I could sense something...that Kurt was with us.  They told me to prove it...so I did.  I conjured up a spell...went to my little magic box...and "poof"...there he was.  You can imagine the surprise...

Kurt talked about New Wave music in front of the Seattle skyline...wondering if Nirvana was on the brink of bringing New Wave and break dancing back in vogue.  The little black box was my lap top...and the spell was "youtube".  So what's my point?  Technology and Magic are not that different from each other.  Both are an attempt to manipulate forces at work in the world.  With the right word, or the click of the computer, we can magically bring people back from the dead...having them appear in the most unlikely of places.  Both cause people to live forever...something Radiohead wrestles with in the song "Video tape"...as we all live forever in "red, blue, green".  Students magically disappear right in the middle of class.  Totally sick of what I'm saying...they enter into the mysterious worlds of Facebook and MySpace...never to be seen again...or at least not until it's time for class to be over.  Sure, we use different words to describe it...we don't call web addresses or binary code "spells"...we have made the lingo all scientific and rational so we don't freak out.  But...the truth of the matter is what we experience through technology is on par with ancient magic.  Do some research on Sir Isaac Newton sometime...see what he REALLY spent his time doing...

In this way the gospel confronts technology in the same way it confronted Magic.  The magicians Paul confronts in Acts used magic to control...to gain power...economic gain...for the glorification of the self.  This led to oppression...to dehumanization...In the same way the use of technology can often be driven by power and the desire to control. Manipulation...oppression...dehumanization.  Think about Facebook and MySpace...we erect idols to the gods we worship...making ourselves in our own image...or the image of what we wish our self could be.  Morpheus's' "projection of our digital selves".  

I know, I know....HYPOCRITE!  Here I am using blogspot...using technology to write this

 diatribe against technology.  Touche.  I never said technology is evil - period.  Technology can be used well and appropriately for the benefit others.  (Even Facebook?) What I am calling us to think about are the unintended consequences of technology...and the motives, the power, that lies beneath the surface.  To work at reclaiming our humanity in the midst a mad technological orgy. 

 

Next time you talk to Kurt...tell him hello...