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From: wfi@rti.UUCP (William Ingogly)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: The Impact of Inventions
Message-ID: <2172@hplabsc.HP.COM>
Date: Mon, 6-Jul-87 17:09:08 EDT
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Posted: Mon Jul  6 17:09:08 1987
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[The discussion continues, but we *are* getting a bit off track, so let's
 try to steer it back to technology and society please... -- Dave ]

>> When I said 'poets,' I was referring to people like ...
>
>This strikes me as a very snobbish response.  If there is an outlet whereby
>poets have a large impact, that establishes the importance of poetry.
>Whether the poets in question are the ones commonly thought of as poets, and
>anyone's opinion of the quality of their work, are both beside the point.

So what sells is poetry. Aesthetics, content, and skill are beside the point.
If I can outsell poet X I am by definition a more important poet.
What's wrong with this picture?

>... I believe that the people who write the TV
>jingles and sitcoms think of themselves as part of the literati, and are, in
>vastly disproportionate numbers, amongst the readers of the serious poets.

I in fact have known people who write greeting cards and romance
novels. They may consider themselves part of the literati, but they
know that what they're doing for a living is hack work. Their interest
(if any) in serious poetry has little connection with their professional
output.
 
>In the end, though, I don't think we *can* really control our technology.
>If one group doesn't develop something, somebody else will.  The best we can
>do is to try to understand the implications, and change the details here and
>there for best effect.  But ultimately, we are captives of our technological
>development, and can only hope we like where it takes us.

This is a fatalistic attitude that assumes technology by its nature
must or should remain forever beyond our control. I fail to see why:
technology doesn't possess an existence independent of the people and
social forces that make it what it is; people and social forces can be
influenced and changed; what is it, then, about technology that makes
it impossible to control?
                                 -- Bill Ingogly