The Humanitas Forum

To the worm in horse radish, the whole world is horse radish, runs the old Yiddish proverb.  The same might be said of Americans and popular culture.  Since it’s all we know, it’s quite often invisible.

Unfortunately, …

Understanding the social impact of Facebook and the other social media is an ongoing challenge.  Yes, it helps us stay in touch with lots of friends and acquaintances.  It’s a good way to quickly pass on certain kinds …

Technology is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral.  This is a lesson taught by Plato and repeated by Neil Postman.  The French sociologist Jacques Ellul makes the same point and so does historian of science Melvin …

Phubbing is phone-snubbing.  It happens when someone pays attention to their mobile phone instead of the people in their immediate presence.  Many of us are guilty!  We’re also guilty of excusing our companions when they reach for …

What does it profit a man if he gains 130,427 Twitter followers and loses his own soul?  The best person to answer this question is Sammy Rhodes who, in his own words, became “irrepressibly and obsessively hooked” on Twitter.…

Technology is not neutral—it wires our expectations.  It enables our desires to be satisfied with ever increasing immediacy.  The two-day delivery of Amazon Prime is not about to become passé.  But like the other giant retailers Walmart …

The fate of the book is widely debated, though for some its disappearance is a foregone conclusion.  But what about the fate of a book that discusses the technologies that are displacing the book?  Interestingly, one such book, …

What has Christian theology to do with posthuman culture?

Much—or it should!  Over a half-century ago C. S. Lewis warned that the last step in man’s conquest of nature would mean the conquest of human nature itself.  …

Some of the most important questions never get asked!  Certain things seem so obvious that we never think to inquire into their nature.  Reading is one of those things.  It’s taken for granted that reading is for …

What does technology want?  It wants to give us choices, to give us lots of opportunities, proclaims Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired magazine.  Once described as the “happy evangelist from Geekdom,” Kelly argues that technology enables us to …