Title: The Luddite’s Guide to Technology
Author: CJS Hayward
Genre: creative non-fiction / religion and spirituality / technology – social aspects
Rating: 4 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy provided by Enchanted Book Promotions in exchange for an honest review.
Mammon, as it is challenged in the Sermon on the Mount, represents such wealth and possessions as one could have two thousand years ago. But that is merely beer as contrasted to the eighty proof whisky our day has concocted. The Sermon on the Mount aims to put us in the driver’s seat and not what you could possess in ancient times, and if the Sermon on the Mount says something about metaphorical beer, perhaps there are implications for an age where something more like eighty proof whisky is all around us.
In The Luddite’s Guide to Technology, author CJS Hayward poses a few intriguing questions: why are we driven by material possessions? How can we stop ourselves from being ruled by technology? The author comes to some fitting conclusions in his articles and essays represented in this collection. “iPhones and Spirituality” is the start to the collection, and it immediately sets the tone. It focuses on the iPhone to establish an example, which is then looked upon in much broader view in the following articles “Religion and Science is not just Intelligent Design vs. Evolution” and “Technonomoicon: Technology, Nature, Ascesis”. Next up, there’s an article focusing on a music video, “Veni, Vidi, Vomi: A look at, “Do you want to date my avatar?”. Then the author revisits Plato’s allegory is “Plato: The Allegory of the…Flickering Screens” which for me, was more of an eye-opener than the article about the music video. Considering Plato’s original dialogue, and then how it can be translated to today’s world, and the significance of what’s being said, I considered that one of the most important articles in the collection.
“Religion without Bounds of Amusement” was another great article, a satire really, and one that works to get the author’s point across. “Singularity”, a few articles later, was another eye-opener. The book ends with “The Luddite’s Guide to Technology”, a solid article raising some valid points.
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