The Geeky and the Godly
One fine, sunny day in July, and I was somewhat reluctant to disappear into the Savoy Buildings (admittedly elegant) conference centre, as a conference for geeks is not an exiting prospect. But as they promise to 'Reboot Britain', I had to be there.
From Gillian Tett, the fragrant but punchy financial pundit from the FT, to Martha Lane-Fox, in her new incarnation as adviser to the government, to Tony Ageh, a rather dull exponent of the BBC's archives, all the clever folk on the Information Superhighway were there to try find ways of improving our lives via their technologies, making Britain a better place for us all.
I was impressed by their earnest goodwill, astonished by their adventurous out-of-any-box thinking, but also a little sad, wondering about their lack of background in disciplines other than their own. It sounded so '60s - just with lots of techie add-ons - and similarly innocent, but psychologically ignorant to my ears. Paradigms of change have their own human rules, and to try to operate them without that knowledge is not useful at all. But perhaps I am underestimating them, somewhat bamboozled by their language, clever gizmos and twittery bits flashing all over the place .
Though the enthusiasm of Jon Gisby from Channel 4 was hard to resist, I kept wondering about who, in effect, will control all these networking environments we are meant to aspire to. It would be wonderful to think that the net is open to and for all, but it seems already that the US monopolises cyberspace, and we can only speculate as to who finances all this. In whose interest are there 'youth help groups', and who collects these addresses and for what purpose ultimately? Call me paranoid, but Huxley's Brave New World is such a potent memory! It would be nice to think of the web as becoming 'palace for learning', but it is undoubtedly already is a place for very damaging information and pornography for kids - and there was no mention of this here. How do we get a generation of kids who know all about the Kama Sutra to concentrate on the skills of plumbing, or indeed the relevance of Huxley?
We know that the next generation is expected by many in the educational/psychological professions to have a severe lack of functional attachment behaviours with the consequence of incumbent brain deficiency that we - thanks to computers - understand so much better now. If their lack of interaction with parents and siblings is leading not only to a profound lack of human communicating skills, but also to a deep deformation of brain potential, then we really must go to the root of all this, which is the interpersonal behaviours our society is producing. Ineffective networking of superhighways is very much a secondary event in this scenario, I 'd say.
It is, of course, laudable to lament the underprivileged, who have no access to the joys of the Information Superhighway. But really saving £236 will not actually help them survive in these hard days of recession, will it?
Yes, it is wonderful that older people can communicate better and enrich their lives with their PCs, but research shows what they need most is interpersonal warmth - not likely to emanate from their machine.
At the end of the day, Stephen Dyer from the Nominet Trust offered entrepreneurs financial help with socially meaningful projects, a ray of light of practical, grounded application in a what seemed to me a head-heavy, and far too heady room - so full of good-will, but so short on psychological/cultural awareness. Nice geeks, but still geeks I suppose.
And whence to the other extreme of life in London - Temple Church in Middle Temple, the seat of our 'learned friends' of law.
Here on a balmy summer's eve, Felicity Lott, the cherished mezzo-soprano, gave a recital of Lieder. The divine Dame, suitably attired in shimmering gold trousers with a glittering Kaftan, charmed her ardent admirers with Schubert. In her subtle, mellow rendering of Schubert's Nun hast Du mir den ersten Schmerz getan (Now you have caused my first pain), the lovers lament over the death of the beloved, delicatedly supported by her elegant pianist Prof Julius Drake.
But little gasps of delight were heard for a rare find, the A Chloris by Theophile Gaultier, a most beautiful lovesong written in the 16th Century. To hear these exquisite, haunting melodies in the extraordinary surroundings of Middle Temple Hall, full of ancient heraldry, a vivid testimony to the achievements of this country's past, is to wonder about it's place in the present.
Surely it is only by an integration of the past and the present - geeks and gods - that we will find a satisfying solution. So geeks, off to the Temple! The radiant Dame, resembling a bird of paradise, looked as if she would happily share the joys of her craft and surf their Superhighway with a warm smile.
- The Southbank Gourmande
I was impressed by their earnest goodwill, astonished by their adventurous out-of-any-box thinking, but also a little sad, wondering about their lack of background in disciplines other than their own. It sounded so '60s - just with lots of techie add-ons - and similarly innocent, but psychologically ignorant to my ears. Paradigms of change have their own human rules, and to try to operate them without that knowledge is not useful at all. But perhaps I am underestimating them, somewhat bamboozled by their language, clever gizmos and twittery bits flashing all over the place .
Though the enthusiasm of Jon Gisby from Channel 4 was hard to resist, I kept wondering about who, in effect, will control all these networking environments we are meant to aspire to. It would be wonderful to think that the net is open to and for all, but it seems already that the US monopolises cyberspace, and we can only speculate as to who finances all this. In whose interest are there 'youth help groups', and who collects these addresses and for what purpose ultimately? Call me paranoid, but Huxley's Brave New World is such a potent memory! It would be nice to think of the web as becoming 'palace for learning', but it is undoubtedly already is a place for very damaging information and pornography for kids - and there was no mention of this here. How do we get a generation of kids who know all about the Kama Sutra to concentrate on the skills of plumbing, or indeed the relevance of Huxley?
We know that the next generation is expected by many in the educational/psychological professions to have a severe lack of functional attachment behaviours with the consequence of incumbent brain deficiency that we - thanks to computers - understand so much better now. If their lack of interaction with parents and siblings is leading not only to a profound lack of human communicating skills, but also to a deep deformation of brain potential, then we really must go to the root of all this, which is the interpersonal behaviours our society is producing. Ineffective networking of superhighways is very much a secondary event in this scenario, I 'd say.
It is, of course, laudable to lament the underprivileged, who have no access to the joys of the Information Superhighway. But really saving £236 will not actually help them survive in these hard days of recession, will it?
Yes, it is wonderful that older people can communicate better and enrich their lives with their PCs, but research shows what they need most is interpersonal warmth - not likely to emanate from their machine.
At the end of the day, Stephen Dyer from the Nominet Trust offered entrepreneurs financial help with socially meaningful projects, a ray of light of practical, grounded application in a what seemed to me a head-heavy, and far too heady room - so full of good-will, but so short on psychological/cultural awareness. Nice geeks, but still geeks I suppose.
And whence to the other extreme of life in London - Temple Church in Middle Temple, the seat of our 'learned friends' of law.
Here on a balmy summer's eve, Felicity Lott, the cherished mezzo-soprano, gave a recital of Lieder. The divine Dame, suitably attired in shimmering gold trousers with a glittering Kaftan, charmed her ardent admirers with Schubert. In her subtle, mellow rendering of Schubert's Nun hast Du mir den ersten Schmerz getan (Now you have caused my first pain), the lovers lament over the death of the beloved, delicatedly supported by her elegant pianist Prof Julius Drake.
But little gasps of delight were heard for a rare find, the A Chloris by Theophile Gaultier, a most beautiful lovesong written in the 16th Century. To hear these exquisite, haunting melodies in the extraordinary surroundings of Middle Temple Hall, full of ancient heraldry, a vivid testimony to the achievements of this country's past, is to wonder about it's place in the present.
Surely it is only by an integration of the past and the present - geeks and gods - that we will find a satisfying solution. So geeks, off to the Temple! The radiant Dame, resembling a bird of paradise, looked as if she would happily share the joys of her craft and surf their Superhighway with a warm smile.
- The Southbank Gourmande
