Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.
From Walden, by Henry David Thoreau
I’ve never read Thoreau, but this quote was referenced by Neil Postman in a lecture on technology that I listened to, and I thought it was too good not to take note of. It sounds like something Chesterton could have written, and the implications of the idea are numerous. We are becoming more and more ‘wired’ with each year that passes. We need more technology in the classroom, but is our education improving? We need more access to the internet, but what if we are learning nothing.We need easier access to television shows, but what do they have to say? In the words of Steve Brown, You think about that.
That is a horrible quote! Texas nothing to communicate? Boy, thems fightin’ words! 🙂
That’s funny Timothy, I hadn’t even thought of it that way. But look at it this way: since everything is bigger in Texas, you have MORE of nothing to communicate!
I kid, I kid. Speaking of nothing to communicate, just so you know I finally quit Facebook the other day. It’s the first time I’ve quit, and we’ll see how long it lasts, but I got propositioned for money by someone I haven’t seen in years and I took that as the nail in my Facebook coffin. I just see too much weird stuff on there.