remain poignant. Forgetting, in other words, whether it is done by us or for us, is an essential kindness. The positive side of time.
Videotape tampers with this, as with so many other things. It disturbs the balance, disrupts the flow. The pleasures it offers come at the price of others, far greater though more elusive. The pain it brings—whether by keeping the dead constantly before our eyes in a sort of suspended animation, or by preserving the mannerisms, the habits, the cruelties best forgotten—is potentially exquisite.
IV
To the charge that I belong to the ranks of the technologically impaired—an anachronism, a throwback mired in a nineteenth-century sensibility—I plead partially guilty. I’ll admit that I prefer basic materials: wood or stone. Basic tools: an ax, a pen, a wood clamp. Basic entertainments: conversation, a book between two covers, a musical instrument. In my own defense, however, I can honestly say that I’m not incapable of appreciating the wonders—from gene splicing to lasers—that everywhere crowd in on my attention. I’m not insensible to the benefits and beauties of technology. Faced with major surgery, my allegiance to the wood clamp would quickly fade. And yet, my respect for technological marvels is of the same sort a pre-Columbian tribesman might feel for a gun or an automobile: grudging, suspicious, a product of the head not the heart. I can’t help it. No Luddite, I nonetheless keep the crowbar handy.
As near as I can tell, my suspicion springs from my instinctive allegiance to the physical world, to the present moment, to the strengths and limitations of the human mind. I distrust whatever tends to improve or displace them. As far back as 1930, Freud had already noted the technological trend I find so disquieting. “Long ago,” he wrote, “[man] formed an ideal conception of omnipotence and omniscience which he embodied in his gods. To these gods he attributed everything that seemed unattainable to his wishes, or that was forbidden to him.… To-day he has come very close to the attainment of this ideal, he has almost become a god himself. Only, it is true, in the fashion in which ideals are usually attained according to the general judgement of humanity. Not completely; in some respects not at all, in others only half way. Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God.”
It is as a technological prosthesis—an artificial memory—that I fear the camcorder. I see it as part of a much larger cultural phenomenon marked by a willingness to tamper with the limits of our world, or to replace it altogether. This is not quite as absurd as it sounds. Though they are admittedly primitive, alternate “virtual” worlds already exist. Already it has become possible to move and work, to communicate and accomplish physical tasks, to run and jump—with many of the sensations normally attributed to these activities—in worlds that exist only on a computer screen. At any given moment a spot census would reveal hundreds of thousands, even millions, at work and play in artificial landscapes. And when they return from their journeys, like all travelers, they return only partially. The dominion of the real is everywhere under siege. Most would see this as harmless and fascinating. Perhaps it is, but I’m unable to believe it. I’ve tried.
All of this has led not so much to a revolution in my lifestyle as to an adjustment in my thinking. My priorities have changed somewhat. Near the top of my list, I believe, would be to live in such a way as be more and more “here,” as Thoreau once put it. Have I banished all videotapes from my house? Not at all. Would I accept another, were it given to me? More than likely. Resistance, taken too far, becomes an affirmation. But I would keep the videotape in its place, restrict it, refuse it the reverence it demands.
Still, it’s an uncomfortable position I find myself in, constantly wavering like some red-blooded apostle between
Videotape tampers with this, as with so many other things. It disturbs the balance, disrupts the flow. The pleasures it offers come at the price of others, far greater though more elusive. The pain it brings—whether by keeping the dead constantly before our eyes in a sort of suspended animation, or by preserving the mannerisms, the habits, the cruelties best forgotten—is potentially exquisite.
IV
To the charge that I belong to the ranks of the technologically impaired—an anachronism, a throwback mired in a nineteenth-century sensibility—I plead partially guilty. I’ll admit that I prefer basic materials: wood or stone. Basic tools: an ax, a pen, a wood clamp. Basic entertainments: conversation, a book between two covers, a musical instrument. In my own defense, however, I can honestly say that I’m not incapable of appreciating the wonders—from gene splicing to lasers—that everywhere crowd in on my attention. I’m not insensible to the benefits and beauties of technology. Faced with major surgery, my allegiance to the wood clamp would quickly fade. And yet, my respect for technological marvels is of the same sort a pre-Columbian tribesman might feel for a gun or an automobile: grudging, suspicious, a product of the head not the heart. I can’t help it. No Luddite, I nonetheless keep the crowbar handy.
As near as I can tell, my suspicion springs from my instinctive allegiance to the physical world, to the present moment, to the strengths and limitations of the human mind. I distrust whatever tends to improve or displace them. As far back as 1930, Freud had already noted the technological trend I find so disquieting. “Long ago,” he wrote, “[man] formed an ideal conception of omnipotence and omniscience which he embodied in his gods. To these gods he attributed everything that seemed unattainable to his wishes, or that was forbidden to him.… To-day he has come very close to the attainment of this ideal, he has almost become a god himself. Only, it is true, in the fashion in which ideals are usually attained according to the general judgement of humanity. Not completely; in some respects not at all, in others only half way. Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God.”
It is as a technological prosthesis—an artificial memory—that I fear the camcorder. I see it as part of a much larger cultural phenomenon marked by a willingness to tamper with the limits of our world, or to replace it altogether. This is not quite as absurd as it sounds. Though they are admittedly primitive, alternate “virtual” worlds already exist. Already it has become possible to move and work, to communicate and accomplish physical tasks, to run and jump—with many of the sensations normally attributed to these activities—in worlds that exist only on a computer screen. At any given moment a spot census would reveal hundreds of thousands, even millions, at work and play in artificial landscapes. And when they return from their journeys, like all travelers, they return only partially. The dominion of the real is everywhere under siege. Most would see this as harmless and fascinating. Perhaps it is, but I’m unable to believe it. I’ve tried.
All of this has led not so much to a revolution in my lifestyle as to an adjustment in my thinking. My priorities have changed somewhat. Near the top of my list, I believe, would be to live in such a way as be more and more “here,” as Thoreau once put it. Have I banished all videotapes from my house? Not at all. Would I accept another, were it given to me? More than likely. Resistance, taken too far, becomes an affirmation. But I would keep the videotape in its place, restrict it, refuse it the reverence it demands.
Still, it’s an uncomfortable position I find myself in, constantly wavering like some red-blooded apostle between
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