Book Review: The Life We're Looking For by Andy Crouch

The Life We're Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World by Andy Crouch

Modern conveniences have only gotten more and more convenient. We can communicate with almost anyone on the planet, and not just in text or on the phone but with live video. We can order food, drink, books, clothes, entertainment, gadgets, and anything else at the click of a button, often with the item arriving in a matter of hours, let alone days or weeks. The world is at our fingertips. 

And yet, there is a crisis of genuine contact between people. Text messages are notorious for being misinterpreted; even videos don't quite give us the same experience that we have when we meet in person. Convenience has come at a cost. Do you even make eye contact at checkout counters? Do you even see the same people at the same store? Do you even see them as people? Of course, the opposite is distressingly true--do others sees you as a person? A person is more than the spending power of their credit card or the entertainment value of their presence. What we learn in modern interactions is not knowing a person as a person. 

Andy Crouch looks at this dehumanizing quality of modern life and convincingly documents the ways that life has become less personal. Technology can do amazing things and can be helpful in certain ways, but the dominate tone is a false promise of fulfillment, fulfilling only basic needs and wants, not looking to deeper and more specifically human needs. Crouch provides ideas for how to counteract the numbing and isolating effects of our technologically-dominated world. 

He builds on ideas started two thousand years ago, when the Roman Empire was at its height of world domination. A new movement started, in homes and around tables, where everyone had equal dignity: the scholars, the government officials, the scribes, the slaves, the females. Christianity provided a sea change in human culture with its emphasis on human dignity and care for even the most marginalized and supposedly worthless members of society. While it seems that such a scheme is doomed to failure, look where the Roman empire is today (in history books and museums) and where Christians are (all over the world, in hospitals and hospices, in food banks and soup kitchens). Crouch recommends we build households, places where people of different stages and stations in life gather and truly live together. Some households only have family, but often people who are not blood relations live in common and still develop close bonds and give mutual support. These are communities like the early Christian communities, where people would gather to pray and eat and serve each other. Such a lifestyle is unglamorous and won't wind up in history books or museums, but it will last for generations to come and will make the world a better place.

This book is inspirational without being ham-fistedly religious. While referencing Christianity, Crouch does not argue that we depend on grace or supernatural interventions in order to heal the wounds in modern society. He is not telling anyone to go to church or to pray to God (he does not write about that). Crouch keeps it on a humanist level, even while acknowledging that the problems of hedonistic, materialistic culture are the results of serving Mammon, which Jesus claims in Matthew 6:24 is what you are serving if you aren't serving God. People need to make priorities and some priorities are better than others.

Highly recommended, and it's a quick read too!

SAMPLE QUOTE: "The privacy we cherish is constantly in danger of curdling into isolation." [p. 160]

Book Review: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

William Kamkwamba grew up in a small town in Malawi. The town's marketplace has electricity, most of the time, but the farms are too far out and too poor to be wired up. People would come into town to charge their cell phones, sometimes at businesses that ran power cords from the shop to a table on the street. The local primary school was okay. Getting a secondary-school education meant paying a lot of money and walking to schools far away. As William grew up, one summer of bad weather ruined his father's crops (maize for sustenance, tobacco for profit), along with everyone else's. The government had sold off its surplus and provided no help. A slow and devastating famine swallowed up lives and hope. Money was short and William couldn't continue his education.

But it didn't stop him from learning. He was a tinkerer, playing with radios and whatever was at hand. He discovered some scientific text books at the local primary school's library (which had three shelves of books). In the books, he saw windmills. William was fascinated by the idea of providing electricity for his family and maybe a water pump for the farm so that a drought wouldn't ever wipe them out again. He began to experiment; he rummaged through scrap piles for parts; he dreamed of a better life for himself, his family, and his country.

Happily, his dreams came true after going through many hardships. In addition to the famine that cost so many lives, he had to deal with friends and neighbors who thought he was crazy. All the perseverance and ingenuity paid off when he built his first windmill from some bicycle parts, some PVC pipe, and an assortment of spare parts. And a lot of help from friends and others. His story is a personal triumph but also one that shows the support and love he received along the way.

The book is very inspiring and well worth reading. It gives a glimpse into sub-Saharan life and into the ambition that we all could have. William was not particularly talented but he did work very hard to achieve his dreams, in spite of the challenges he faced.

Recommended.

Movie Review: Videodrome (1983)

Videodrome (1983) written and directed by David Cronenberg

In this early film of horror master David Cronenberg, James Woods plays cable TV station owner Max Renn who is looking for new, edgier content to get more people watching his channel. He rejects offers of a Japanese Samurai sex show and of an ancient Roman orgy. He is intrigued by a pirated satellite video feed seemingly from Malaysia of a show called Videodrome, where people are tortured by masked men in a red clay room. There's no plot or ongoing characters but Max can't stop watching. He starts tracking it down and begins having frightening hallucinations where inanimate objects start having organic qualities and his own body starts to change in grotesque ways (but is that only during the hallucination?). The line between reality and hallucination blurs for him and the viewers. So there's a lot disturbing body horror in the movie, much like Cronenberg's remake of The Fly.

The more interesting and more disturbing part of the movie is the corruption of his soul. At the beginning of the movie, Max is looking for horrifying exploitation content for his TV channel but he assumes Videodrome (like other TV productions) is faked--they are actors who aren't really being harmed. He goes on a talk show where the host challenges his broadcasts as debasing but he counters that it gives people an outlet for their aggression or sexual desires without harming others. He starts dating Nicki Brand, another talk show host, who is turned on by violence and harm, even showing some scars on her shoulder where previous boyfriends have cut her. When she watches Videodrome, she thinks she was born to be on it. Max is horrified by the idea. As the movie continues, he discovers more about the show and multiple people warn him to stay away from Videodrome. But the hallucinations start to change him personally. He becomes a battleground for a war of ideas between the broadcasters of Videodrome and those working against it. The ending is ambiguous which can be frustrating for the viewer but leaves a lot of room for interpretation and discussion.

There's also a suggestion that the effects of Videodrome are a next step in human evolution, creating a new flesh and merging humanity and technology. The idea is hinted at several times but doesn't get anywhere. The ending is ambiguous on this point as well.

More than just the ending is ambiguous. Several parts of the film don't make sense, making me wonder if Max was still hallucinating or not. The movie, for me, isn't so much a coherent whole as it is an interesting spark for considering various ideas such as the influence of entertainment, the role of technology in life, and the need for treating others both physically and psychically with dignity (because otherwise, things get really, really messed up!).

Parental advisory: There is a lot of graphic sexual content, violence, and gore and would easily be NC-17 if rated today. Minor cuts were made back in the 1980s; I watched a restored cut which only added two minutes, and those two minutes add a lot, if the description of the cuts from the director's commentary is accurate. This movie is for adults only, and those with a high tolerance.

I was inspired to watch this by the excellent podcast series (which is also available on YouTube) The Flicks that Church Forgot. At one point in his review of the movie, he tells listeners to stop if they haven't seen the movie and don't want to be spoiled. I had this movie in the back of my mind for a while, so I did stop and watch.

N Learns Simple Machines

N has developed an interest in simple machines. He hasn't discovered the classic machines, e.g. the inclined plane, the wheel, the lever and fulcrum, etc. He is more interested in the basics of modern machinery which means two simple tools.

The first tool is the button. He likes to push them on toys that will light up and react. He has a cube that plays Mozart tunes. Each face has a different instrument, so N can turn them on and off in the middle of the tune. He enjoys that a lot, though not as much as the buttons on the dish washer. They also light up and make noises. I think he's so obsessed with it because he sees me using it so much.

Pushing buttons

Pushing buttons is definitely a skill that will come in handy in the future. Just look at Jean-Luc Picard's Enterprise. All the control panels are touch screens. And don't get me started on how much N tries to play with our iPad...

Image of Star Trek Next Gen keyboard taken from here

The second tool is the switch. It certainly seems like a magical device. Wall switches create or extinguish light! They also have a nice tactile response when used. He often makes me stand in the bathroom while he practices switching the light up and down (down is much easier).

Did I get it right?

Flipping switches is also a skill that will come in handy in the future. Just look at Kirk's Enterprise. Most every control panel has switches. Uhura and Spock spent a lot of their time flipping them and reporting valuable and/or dramatic information (or lack of information). Either job would be an excellent future for young N. He just needs to live to the ripe old age of two hundred.

Image of Star Trek Original Series taken from here

We dread the next simple machine he will probably want to master--the door knob. Of course, that skill won't be necessary in the future because both Enterprises have automatic doors.

For now, N is content to look cute and work on his current skills.

Looking cute is also an important skill in the future

In case you need proof about looking cute is important in the future, check this John C. Wright Memorial image.

"SevenofNine" by Source (WP:NFCC#4). Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.