On Spirituality & Technology

Roxanne Euben's article "A counternarrative of shared ambivalence", I thought, was very interesting in that it took into consideration the social context of our time and incorporated it into her article. The purpose of her writing this article is to inform her audience of the fact that us Westerners are not the only ones who hold ambivalence towards scientific paradigms and ideas such as scientism and rationalism -- Islamists, who are so often portrayed as irrational beings in the media, are shown in her article to be supporters of Islamic modernism. It is a shame that American media outlets play on dichotomies to instill fear into the general public: religion vs. science, Islam vs. the West. Euben realizes this and hopes that we will rethink our idea of these "foreign others".

It appears that Euben made an appearance in the documentary "The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear". I had made a point to see this documentary a long time ago, but never got around to it. I should get hold of a copy. I suppose this documentary is another instance of media that plays on the dichotomies I mentioned, but instead of doing so unknowingly, it informs us that such dichotomies exist.

I never thought about the fact that science was often associated with Western power, until reading this article. Actually, I disagree with this notion. What about Japan? They are far more technologically advanced than the West. It has been said that products similar to the iPhone, which has just been released in North America, have been in existence for a long time. What about India? They have tons of technological institutes and its educated population is incredibly technologically savvy. I suppose this notion of science & Western power is reflected in Noble's novel as well. After saying this then, I guess I must agree with the quote from Euben's article that "Men must be related to science, not science to men".

Science and individual pursuit is definitely characteristic of our society today. "Despite a rich variety of traditions latent in contemporary American culture, it is anemic forms of individualism ... that have come to define both public and private life". Technology just facilitates our search for identity and enlightenment. Take as example, all the different types of spirituality available for a person to embrace. Before our time, people were often born into a religion, but now with the advent of Internet sites such as Wikipedia and general informative websites, people have the flexibility and ability to choose their spirituality at will. In the celebrity world some years ago, to embrace Kabbalah was to take on a trendy fad more than anything.

With regards to the YouTube videos that were shown in class last week, both parties used problematic arguments to get their point across. The man attacks Evangelical Christians saying that they encourage not using the intellect, while the woman attacks all things irrational, period. The point though is that they raise interesting questions in relation to the article.