On Reflection: An Essay on Technology, Education, and the Status of Thought in the Twenty-first Century

Ellen Rose On Reflection: An Essay on Technology, Education, and the Status of Thought in the Twenty-first Century Toronto, Canada: Canadian Scholars' Press, 2013

On the uncertain but relatively breezy assumptions that: on the one hand our species survives both the intellectual malaise that festers beneath the shrill accusations and mindless celebrations cluttering the mass media, and the physical hazards arising from everything from ecological breakdown to thermonuclear war; and, on the other hand, that we haven't taken entirely to heart Stephen Hawking's advice (Moscowitz, 2010) to flee to some other planet, then future archivists, anthropologists or archaeologists (depending on what form the available detritus from the twenty-first century might take) may be forgiven if they look with puzzlement at whatever bits and chards of our society that they can reasonably reconstruct.

Even if we manage to avoid the horrors of the past one hundred years (two officially labeled "World Wars," various genocides, unprecedented technological change and all the ethical conundrums it brought, the systemic building and broad-spectrum degradation of political democracy, and more importantly the ecological ravages of climate change all blended with the imminently calamitous consequences of overpopulation), there will be lots of opportunities to ask the simple (but not simplistic) question: What were these people thinking? The equally simple (but also not simplistic) answer will probably be: Not much and certainly not deeply enough.

It's not that we don't think. In fact, there are plenty of brains-supplemented by armies of computers churning out artificial unintelligence-operating at hyperspeed in and among the lofty pinnacles of global corporations, the shaky corridors of national governments, the eerie offices of self-congratulatory "think tanks," the ether of cyberspace and even in the allegedly "ivory towers" (but, more likely, the bricks, mortar and poured concrete) of academe. The problem is that, notwithstanding some genuinely impressive research and product development in some domains of medicine, communications and the design and engineering of mental and physical prostheses, most of us do not think seriously about much of anything.

Celebrity gossip, natural disasters, les terroristes du jour, FIFA football and Olympic Games results and scandals, collapsing currencies and fragile economies and, of course, ongoing clashes of apparent civilizations and the "new big thing" mobile communications devices all pass fleetingly, frantically, feverishly...