Human beings have a terribly tendency to abuse things. Indeed, the greater the potentiality for good, the greater the propensity for abuse. Thus, while I find certain technological features which are designed to assist to be less than so, I find my colleagues bemoaning of such to be tiresome.
It is certainly true that some aspects of the Internet can be meddlesome. Amazon’s incessant recommendation of books and Google’s employment of the page rank algorithm can seem to render choice insignificant, and, by a dangerous corollary, render the masses devoid of taste. Yet this is a false assumption for two reasons.
First, Amazon and Google do not inhibit choice; they merely seem to serve to limit it. One is not forced to purchase a suggestion of the former anymore than one is compelled to click on the first link provided by the latter. If the material recommend is deemed insufficient, I would posit the alternative of going to a library, though perhaps the skeptical would balk at a suggestion from the kindly librarian.
Second, the mass of men is neither intelligent nor gifted in terms of taste, particularly in democratic ages, if Alexis De Tocqueville is to be believed. American Idol, Nickelback and Dan Brown are the products of the Internet age, but they are not direct results thereof. Instead, both stem from the same cause: a dying civilization embracing the shallow ethos of Epicureanism—though few know what it means.
Elimination of some of the aforementioned features will do little to abate the crisis. Is Amazon really to be feared more than, say, the vacuous programming of MTV? When it comes down to it, many Americans do lack good taste. Yet one shouldn’t blame Google. Even Christ had something to say about the wisdom of casting “pearls before swine.”
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