Sensei

A Special Election Blog!

We don’t usually publish a blog on a Thursday, but this is a special Thursday so I made an exception.  Yes, it’s the day that we in the UK elect our members of Parliament for another term of office.

Read more…

Book Worm or Computer Nerd?

Are we ready to say bye to books was the provocative title of a BBC article last Friday on Kindle DX, an e-reading device nearly as big as an A4 sheet of paper.  After spending some time discussing how it will work and how much it will cost, the article never really gets round to answering its own question.

Dawn did a better job in her blog this week of weighing up the pros and cons.  For her, it all boils down to a matter of choice – both/and thinking, not either/or.  Although from the enthusiastic feel to her blog title – The Kindle is Reborn! – I think we can sense her positive vibes towards it.

All I want to do is quote a few relevant sentences from my main man Neil Postman.  Yes, I know I’ve waxed lyrical about his stuff before.  But, well, its my blog, frankly.  Plus a want to give another perspective from the usual technophile one that dominates the internet. Read more…

The Management Consultant Who Changed the World For the Worse

One of my favourite authors is the communications theorist and cultural critic Neil Postman.  I found his classic book Amusing Ourselves to Death so powerful that I don’t own a TV.  This makes for astonished intakes of breath at parties.  But I find his analysis of contemporary society – that it more closely resembles Huxley’s decedent Brave New World than Orwell’s totalitarian 1984 – persuasive.

I’ve been re-reading another one of Postman’s book recently,  the lesser known Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology.  His thesis is that the US is the first modern culture to have shifted from a  technology-using worldview to a technology-dominated one.  This is one ‘culture war‘ that is not usually included in debate but that is far more deep-seated in the American psyche.

This isn’t a book review, so I’ll spare you the summary.   Read more…