[Softwareandculture] Read 18 Nov 2001 New York Times Sunday magazine, pp. 23-4

[Brad McCormick, Ed.D.]

The article on pages 23-4 of tomorrow's New York Times
Sunday Magazine does an, in my opinion, masterful
job of succinctly deconstructing the recently fashionable
multiculturalism studies, and, even more relevant to this
list, the role of fascination with computer modelling
(AKA software) in distracting the scholarly community
from understanding current world politics.  (I've placed
some excerpts from the article on my website, at

    http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/quotes.html#Q87 )

The NYT essay once again exemplifies the title of
Joseph Weizenbaum's fine book: _Computer Power and Human
Reason: From judgment to calculation_ (Freeman, 1976?).

Surely culture was in no great condition before
computers, but computers have seductively encouraged
the folly of enthusiasm for exact algorithmic reasoning,
at the expense of attention to reasonableness in living.

I have worked most of my life among PhD Computer
Scientists.  Not a few live in a flat-earth cultural
horizon bounded by the latest episode of StarTrek.
The only thing they read other than tech manuals is
"sci-fi", which has all the human maturity of neo-
feudal social relations in flying fortresses.
Others have genuine cultural interests which
are "split off" from their work.  I don't think
I have ever heard one ponder at length what will the effects of
the computer programs we are writing be on
the social and inner lives of persons, and also
on ourselves.  The fact that software is developed
under conditions of traditional boss-employee
labor, and sacro-sanct "deadlines", should be a clue
that software is not advancing culture in any
fundamental way, just like no architecture could
be really modern unless its design disowned
the ritual of the Charette.

Weizenbaum's book should be the core of a required
course in every computer science curriculum.  If
programmers want to be called "engineers", then
they should catch up with other engineering disciplines,
where engineering ethics has become a part of the
curriculum.

Finally, I will repeat myself, and note that PhD
etymologically means: A lover of wisdom who teaches
and heals, using his or her especial expertise
in a particular disciplinary area to further these ends.
That suggests to me a constructive relation
between software and culture, and a yardstick
for measuring how well we are doing.

And what is culture?  Here is one presentation,
by the philosopher Edmund Husserl, from 1935,
which, like Weizenbaum's book, has only become
more relevant with the passage of time: "Philosophy
and the Crisis of European Humanity"

    http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/husserl_philcris.htm

"Yours in discourse"

\brad mccormick
 
-- 
  Let your light so shine before men, 
              that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)

  Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)

<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc@cloud9.net
-----------------------------------------------------------------
  Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/