A note on the (likely) rhythm of this blog.

As a graduate student trying to research and then write my dissertation,* I am obviously what most people would refer to as "busy." Actually, I don't feel that busy considering I have primarily three things on my plate every week and three things only: 1) working on my dissertation, 2) going about my duties as a teaching assistant and 3) taking care of my puppy. But writing is not something I do lightly or quickly; while I do write posts themselves relatively quickly, the editing and tweaking processes take some time, as does, for some reason, all the small changes I make and typos I correct and websites I need to find to link to etc etc when I finally get around to posting the writing.

So basically, I predict most of the posts for this blog will go up between Thursdays and Sundays -- because during the weekdays I am involved a little too much in finding time for everything else. I just wanted to note this so that, if it goes dead here for several days in a row, no one thinks I am fading away. I'm going to be right here for quite a while, I reckon.

During the blank spots though I highly recommend my other blogging locale, An American Atheist, a group blog on atheism and religion. I usually get around to blogging there about once or twice a week, but my fellow bloggers make it well worth visiting on their own credit.
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* And yeah, I am going to do it in that order. (Research then write.) I've been told you are supposed to be writing as you research, but no writing project I've ever done -- including a year long research project that was basically the equivalent of a master's thesis and then was written in three days -- has gone down like that, and I see no reason to doubt at this point a method which has served me so well so consistently.**

** That was completely irrelevant to anything any readers would be interested in here, but forgive me the indulgence. Us graduate students have very little else to talk about sometimes other than our work.

Media technology; an infinite jest?

In the past six months or so, I have added the issue of technology – especially the technology of media, ie TV to facebook  - to the docket of things I think about. This was inspired mostly by the commentary of Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace, two authors I’ve started to read after a whole lifetime of almost totally ignoring literature. Simply put, neither Franzen or Wallace are Luddites (and the way in which this term is used is actually a disservice to the actual Luddites, who were about much more thoughtful and noble ideas than simply disliking technology), but they both articulate a concern that media technology, while having its uses, distracts Americans from both civic engagement and sustained confrontation with the existential questions that all of us must try to address to fully face our humanity. As Jonathan Franzen puts it, “There is some part of me, if I spend all day online, [which] is even lonelier than when I started.”

I myself have a rather ambiguous relationship with the internet in particular. Ever since my undergraduate years, the internet – particularly through the venue of blogging and, online discussions on such social networking sites as facebook – has offered me both one of the most powerful tools of self-expression and also the most acute reminder of how limited that self-expression can often be. It has been both the symbol of connectivity with the outside world and the ultimate symbol of loneliness. In particularly sad times, which always corresponded with a feeling of invisibility, the specter of being surrounded by blank monitors, totally unresponsive to and uninterested in my existence, would present itself to me in my daymares. But obviously here I am, still blogging away – for the internet has also provided me with some of the best opportunities to make connections to other likeminded people, and to have my own views challenged and refined. As the title of this blog suggests, it is part of what keeps my isolation incomplete. 

I try, however, to balance this with activities that depend on and cultivate the type of solitude that actually leads you to being more, rather than less aware of the world around you. It is important to always keep in mind, and thus try to mitigate, the tendencies of media technology to whittle the entire world down to you – to keep you so focused on yourself that actual human empathy becomes increasingly more difficult. Thus this recent column by Maureen Dowd at The New York Times caught my eye. The column mostly flirts ironically with the humor of a new iPhone application designed to make Catholic confession more user-friendly and to encourage the faithful to attend more often. However, the column brings up an unspoken question that both critics from the right and the left like to tackle: will technology ultimately, and inherently, erode human relationships and the fabric of the concept of the larger good?