not a technophile

It's understandable that people mistake me for a technophile. After all, I teach with technology, have a blog, make videos, etc. I research new media. However, to me, the idea of being a technology-lover would go far broader. I think that few people recognize how their desires are shaped by technologies, how they have come to love technology in a very unhealthy, addictive way.

Take meat as an example. If you buy meat from a supermarket and eat it, then you're certainly more of a technophile than I am. Meat is a constellation of technologies: antibiotics, hormones, genetically-modified corn (which the animals are fed), fertilizers and pesticides (for the corn), fossil fuels, refrigeration, etc. It's nasty business, but if you love meat, then you love technology.

There are few things more technological on this planet than a fast food burger.

In fact most processed foods with or without meat are heavily mediated.

The whole idea of technophile and technophobe focuses on only the most visible and recent of technologies: things that you might purchase in a store personally as a consumer and thus choose to use. But the technologies that really shape culture are more pervasive than that; we're soaking in them. In my view, it's foolish to love any object, doubly foolish to love objects uncritically. But it is truly inane to limit one's scope of technology to what is right in front of one's face!

We are all immersed in our technoculture. But the shape of our future has less to do with mobile phones or blogs than it does with energy (food and fuel) and sustainability. Living in an oversized house? Driving an SUV? Eating food flown in from all over the planet? Packing your house with plastic crap? Don't tell me about being a technophile.