Category: Technology
Living By Kairos Time in a Chronos World
Lewis Mumford wrote in his 1934 classic Technics and Civilization that “the clock, not the steam-engine, is the key machine of the modern industrial age.” Due to the mechanical clock, “time-keeping passed into time-serving and time-accounting and time-rationing.” Mumford explains...
When Should I Write? Brief Reflections on the Relationship Between Writing and Expertise
It was a Thursday afternoon; I was perched up in the corner of my favorite local coffee shop with a back-pack full of books that teetered somewhere between impressive and embarrassing. I was in the middle of what I refer...
Why People Don’t Leave Social Media
Social media makes us unhappy. Or, more precisely, social media increases unhappiness for many of us. I spend a lot of time interacting with University students, many of whom are becoming aware that their use of social media is bad...
Our Fugitive Senses and Sensibilities
Throughout the archaeological, biological, and literary records of homo sapiens emerges a common trait: the species best capable of lifting eyes and mind heavenward has not found this earth to be enough. However murkily understood, the great mounds of earth...
We All Have the Power of Caligula Now
The logic, spirit, and economy of contemporary pornography is a near-perfect reflection of society’s failure to provide us with the tools necessary to meet the Responsibilities of Self-Belonging. Pornography assumes that we are each our own and belong to ourselves....
What Is a Smartphone?: A Thomistic Analysis
You understand almost nothing about your smartphone. I can prove it by asking a simple question: what is a smartphone? I suspect you will find difficulty articulating a definition which avoids either tautology or obvious error. But another simple question...
The Church Amongst the Counter-Institutions
I watched The Social Dilemma far later than most people not living under a rock. I expected a serious documentary that forecasted serious consequences with a tone of (even more) serious urgency and fear to drive the point home. If...
If Mr. Kristof Is Taking Names, Apple Should Be Next
On December 4th, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote a powerful expose on the staggering amount of child pornography available on Pornhub. The article featured a politically sharp subtitle, “Why does Canada allow this company to profit off videos...
It’s Not the Economy: Big Tech, Anti-Trust, and the Future of Political Liberalism
After a full year of investigation and hours of congressional testimony, the recent House judiciary report on Big Tech is finally here. While many critics are already complaining that it’s arrival is too late for any actionable response by Congress...
Memes and Icons: Reflections on the Spiritual Meaning of Two Species of Imagery
(Print-friendly PDF) 1. Simply to function in the world, we need to assume that the future will resemble the past to some degree. Taken too far, though, this assumption blinds us to the new. With respect to internet media, I...