I’m a little stunned by Tom Hodgkinson’s recent article in the New Statesman called “Don’t sell me your dream,” in which he (figuratively) stamps his feet, acts like a cranky old man who doesn’t understand technology, and wags his finger at those that do. If Hodgkinson wasn’t so thorough in explaining why exactly he hates technology so much, I’d be convinced the whole thing was satire.

If his article wasn’t meant to be a joke, much of his reasoning certainly comes off that way. He gives all the standard reasons for hating technology: it’s distracting, it’s rude, etc etc. I’ll grant him those. Sometimes I wish I could live a life totally disconnected, too, and not have to think about who’s emailing me, or writing on my wall on Facebook, or about what my friends are doing on Twitter. But at this point, and especially as a journalist-slash-writer-slash-artist, I’ve accepted it as a necessary evil. To ignore it, let alone actively detest it, is foolish.

But there were 2 points in particular that really bothered me. Read his reasoning, and my responses, after the jump.

Point #1

Hodgkinson says:

“When I interviewed the Canadian writer Douglas Coupland in 1994, he was already complaining about how the internet was helping all those ‘wannabe Oscar Wildes just waiting to spew their bons mots into the ether’.”

To which he fanatically agrees, of course. This is insulting. This, above all else, is precisely the reason why I love technology. Because it gives writers, filmmakers, visual artists, and what-have-you the means to cheaply promote their work and share it with an audience of millions. These people all have a story to tell, and I’m thrilled that technology gives me the opportunity to listen. Sure, I will grant that some of these stories are better told than others—but I consider this to be a benefit rather than a detriment of technology. That these so-called “amateurs” get an opportunity to exhibit their work, hear feedback, and to, most importantly, evolve into better storytellers. To dismiss these people, who may not have the financial means or professional connections to make themselves known, as “wannabe Oscar Wildes,” is presumptious and just plain mean.

Point #2

Brave New World (1932), Huxley’s eerily prophetic novel, was conceived as a riposte to H G Wells’s faith in technology. Huxley’s intention was to warn where we might be heading if we continued to chase the technodream. In Brave New World there are no books: Shakespeare and Keats are banned because they disturb people. “Everyone’s happy now,” boasts the Controller, Mustapha Mond. Instead of art and truth and beauty, the brave new world gives its people comfort and happiness. They have as much sex as they like, and when life gets difficult they take the tranquillising drug soma. This is a result of man becoming too clever for his own good: a sterile, antiseptic, bloodless paradise.

What indication, if any, has there ever been that mankind is driving towards such a future? If anything else, we live in a society where technology has given metaphoric megaphones to billions of opinionated people. Thanks to blogs, Twitter, Facebook (I could go on), everyone’s a pundit. People don’t go out of their way to be disturbed by art, truth, and beauty—no, they thrive on it. I have to disagree with just about every point Hodgkinson makes here…though maybe not the sex part. Heh.

Hodgkinson believes that technology isolates us and makes us stupid, but anyone who has ever spent more than 5 minutes on a computer knows that this is a lie. And as one commenter pointed out, he’s totally ignoring all the technological improvements that have benefitted the human race and lengthened our lives: improvements in disease control, sanitation, and agricultural productivity, to name a few. So why all the hate, Tom? He admits himself that “on a severely practical level, technology is hugely frustrating…the gap between the elevated promise of the gadget and the messy reality can lead to bursts of techno-rage.” In other words, he’s like your grandma who squints at the computer screen, clicks around randomly, bangs her hand on the desk, and then goes to a quiet place to read a book. He just doesn’t get it, and clearly doesn’t care enough to learn.