'Computers ... in so far as they impose the reign of information, are the enemies of truth and democracy. Our gaze at their screens is the constitution through watching and receiving of inherently violent transactions which in the end, when we step through their looking-glass, always involve real physical violence.
On line, therefore, we are clubbing each other to death, but invisibly, very very gradually and at a huge remove. When this process does appear, then we finally see what we collectively do, but assume that it has nothing to do with us, individually. But just as breathing is the most massive combustion, so also this slowed-down and distributed violence is actually increased violence, like a torture that is all the more torture through being long drawn-out.'
from Being Reconciled p. 37
Think about that when you next play Scrabbulous....
4 comments:
I've thought and thought. And the more I think, the sillier it gets. In fact, it's so silly that I doubt Milbank himself really believes it.
I have seen reference recently to a statement by Lionel Trilling, to the effect that academics tend to assent to propositions that they do not actually believe. Do you know the actual quote? Is it in Sincerity and Authenticity?
Oh well, Milbank is one those academics who trade in ideas too silly to be true, but fun in any case.
You know, I bet he wrote the aforementioned sentence ON A LAPTOP.
Still I have had conversations on this very blog which felt like torture to me...
It is in Sincerity and Authenticity: in the concluding paragraph, in fact. "Yet the doctrine that madness is health, that madness is liberation and authenticity, receives a happy welcome from a consequential part of the educated public. And when we have given due weight to the likelihood that those who respond positively to the doctrine don't have it in mind to go mad, let alone insane --- it is characteristic of the intellectual life of our culture that it fosters a form of assent which does not involve actual credence --- we must yet take it to be significant if ..."
Splendidly angry passage. And "assent which does not involve actual credence" describes polite reaction to Milbank's argument rather precisely, I would have thought.
As for torturous conversations: Michael I feel your pain, but I've also had a few such without an electronic medium intervening. Or does Milbank also view plain conversation, or the holding of opinions, to be inherently violent?
Actually, Milbank writes out everything long-hand on notebook paper. I'm serious. His books all begin this way and he presents his lectures read from a wire notebook at conferences.
Besides, his comment was qualified by an "in so far as they impose the reign of information," which is a very heavy qualifier and sets up the entire context, and therefore has nothing to do with Scrabbulous ;) Play on!
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