Interactions

My reaction to Borgmann is positive overall. I think unlike many writers, who observe problems and nothing else, Borgmann gives us a way to reform our lives in response these problems. In a time when people ask what is the meaning of life and it 's treated like a joke, Borgmann seems to genuinely reflect upon it. He thinks that in fact not our business or our awesome CD player that define our lives but our human relationships and those techonological advancements that make those interactions possible. And I think by saying that primative technologies like wells or guitars have central meaning in our lives as the enrichment, the focal things, which make focal practices possible, is the most reforming idea in his book because it shows that some day we could have gone through enough reform that modern technology and focal practices will be compatible. For me, it gave more meaning to a sociological theory about how humans consume most of what they buy in public for the whole community to observe (I want to say it was Max Weber but probably not...need sociology notes... Ugh). Thus, the function of our commdious life, at least at the base, is to live in the community and that fact is quite comforting becasue through alot of reform we can illuminate this practice from being beneath the surface. The last promising thing that Borgmann presents is that people are starting to rebel against technology whether it be living in a country house or eating together and I think the reason why is best said in another Murakami short story called TV People. He says, "The TV people exit and leave me alone. My sense of reality comes back to me. These hands are once again my hands. It's only then I notice that the dusk has been swallowed by darkness." Perhaps, we are starting to realize that we haven't taken to the time to realize that we are being enveloped by something we have no knowledge of.