The 1988 Show
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played simultaneously but rather as a chord. Even when one note is a bit
louder than the others, it is the chord that we hear. And so what is lost
when the MP3 algorithm gets rid of what it considers extraneous
simultaneous sound? A lot of music is lost. And somehow, we have all
tacitly agreed to this, agreed that it is change that we accept. It is the sort
of agreement, however, that is not really active, because once we agreed
to the technology we also agreed to the change in values. And this is
because all technologies, and all tools, are conveyers of values. They
force us to take up their values the moment we adopt them for use. The
general misconception that tools and technology are “value neutral” is, in
fact, one of the most dangerous beliefs in culture today. It not only blinds
us to the reality around us but also shifts the moral debate that should be
taking place. Rather than focusing on how we should be using a certain
piece of technology, we should, instead, be asking whether we want that
technology to begin with and thus whether we want to accept the values
it ushers into our lives and our culture.
This is true of all technology and all tools. They necessarily
carry values with them and we adopt those values when we use the tool.
Email is not at all best understood as “just like regular mail, but faster.”
It is a totally different form of communication. A cell phone is not “just
like a regular phone, but now it’s mobile.” Rather, a cell phone changes
everything about how we communicate, how we think of ourselves, our
family, our jobs, etc. And so an iPod is not just like a record player, but
now it’s portable. It changes everything about how we listen to music,
how we conceptualize music, and how we define our own identities.
The truth of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of
technological change over the last twenty-five years has brought us tools
that have built-in values that are bad values for us. They are values that
separate us and disempower us—and it is part of their evil, in fact, that
while they are doing this they lie to us and tell us that they are bringing
us together and democratizing power for us. The values that inhabit most
media tools today are the values of corporations not people, oligarchs not
communities, and capitalists not humanists—and although the built-in
values are impossible to overcome once we use the tools, it is not
necessary that we accept the tools themselves in the first place. Change is
inevitable. But it is immoral for us to believe that a particular
technological trajectory of change is inevitable and we must just sit back
and go along for the ride—that somehow the force of history demands
we must be on Facebook, must have a cell phone, and must text and
Tweet and Instagram every moment of our lives.