Oh, Dear!

Ira Maine has taken the long handle to yesterday’s piece. His comments, at least those of his we can publish, follow.

I have never heard of Winer, Kraus or Franz.

(The author) obviously searched very hard to find a positive review of this book. At the end of this search he finds the Winer review which happens to coincide with his own. He tells us that Kraus and Franz are very concerned about the effect modern technology is having on us all;

“…the most impressive thing about Kraus…how clearly…he recognises the divergence of technological progress from moral and spiritual progress…’

If this is the general drift of the book then we are dealing with ill-informed, pseudo intellectual nonsense.

We do not have ‘…moral and spiritual progress…’ What we do have, in the West, is a world created as a reaction to hundreds of years of murder, exploitation, and genocide.

‘…moral and spiritual progress…’ suggests that we are struggling to grow up morally and spiritually. This is arrant nonsense. We are born with these qualities (or learn them from our parents) because we know that these qualities both created our society and are essential to its survival.

The pretence that a world of moral and spiritual progress exists and is being undermined by technology is straight out of American Redneck religious lunacy.

Any real sense of decency, honour and compassion that we possess is in our hearts and souls from the moment we are born and no IPhone or IPad or computer will alter that.

If there’s a real threat in technology it comes from that technology’s capacity to be manipulated by a paranoid minority who will settle for nothing less than a police state.

The way of life we have now was not gifted to us. Humanity had to fight tooth and nail for every scrap of it. Arrayed against our achieving it were some of the most reactionary forces on the planet. These same forces never ever sleep and would have us serfs again in an instant.

For what it is worth I would not even consider associating the blog with these people. This ‘…most hated writer in America…’ business seems to me like a ploy to draw in the unwary.

Surely, before doing anything at all, or offering any sort of opinion, the book itself should be read and reviewed by us. If ’twere down to me, I’d believe the many critics who’ve already said the book is not worth considering and move on to something else.

pcbycp

Passive Complicity by Cockburn and Poole

Oh, Dear!

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