2009, viewed grouchily, one

I find myself having thoughts about the increasing disconnect between technology and economic capacity: viz. the unbelievable possibilities now open to those who have enough money, and the increasing discomfort for those who do not. This has always been the case to a great degree, but now the least advantaged among us aren't even able to make a phone call. Soon the bare minimum for daily life will be a fully equipped cell phone now that these devices are confidently predicted to be about to render the laptop or notebook computer as obsolete as the CD or the DVD are.

It's an inevitable march to the future; we must all acquire Blu-ray capacity now, unless we are the sort of troglodytes who are always going to get round to watching our DVDs on our laptops next week or the week after that. (The rise of YouTube has helped such folks tremendously.) And I suppose that eventually, the technology will be on sale for $16.49, as witness the slide in price for DVD players over the years.

But as I was listening to the NPR story about the near-future interface between the electronics in one's car and in one's home, wherein one can have one's e-mail read to one while driving, contact the home security device, change the thermostat at home and otherwise adjust the conditions on the home front while presumably using the new self-park technology and other pieces of geewhizzery to compensate for being thus distracted while in traffic...

...as I was listening, when the excited promoter of said technology said "You'll be able to do this within five years," my reaction was, "No, you will be able to do this. Vast numbers of Americans hearing this very NPR program will not have the financial resources to do it."

There are those among us for whom even the upcoming switch from analog to digital television will present a financial hardship. (These tend to be the same people who are cutting back on taking dosages of medicine to save on monthly expenses.)

I suppose libraries will take up the slack regarding some of the technological disjunctures. I am always struck by the fact that the dozens of public-access computers in the Decatur main library continually have wait times of an hour or more before a library patron can use one. (Internet cafes fill this void in European cities and there are a few such in metro Atlanta, but by and large the public that needs to use library computers on a regular basis is also ill equipped to pay for online access by the hour.)

2009, viewed grouchily, two

I feel for the twentysomething readers of this blog (there are one or two such) who must acquire a basic knowledge of what was once contemporary even as they keep up with what they really prefer to be reading about and experiencing, viz. the contemporary plus whatever parts of the past they find intriguing.

All of us had to do the same thing in our respective generations, of course, but I always want to find ways of bringing folks up to speed as expeditiously as possible. I am flabbergasted to learn that high school students are being made to read Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, a book I found irrelevant to my experience back when it was the hip (or the hippie) thing to be reading. (Heck, I remember thinking The Catcher in the Rye was sadly dated when I was made to read it lo these many years ago.)

I bring this up because the New Yorker essay on the continuing relevance of Hannah Arendt fills in the knowledge gap for some people, while rehearsing things that many of my readers remember all too well about Arendt; as readers of joculum know, I am a fan of essays that spare people the necessity of plowing through books purely for the sake of acquiring basic background information, since there are too many books (including many by Arendt) that deserve to be studied in depth:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/01/12/090112crat_atlarge_kirsch?currentPage=all