"Thanks to the enforced isolation of lockdowns, there isn’t a moment of our lives when Jeff Bezos isn’t yanking us around at the end of a digital leash"
This is a wonderful essay. One of the main reasons that lockdowns were enforced so easily is that we were already primed for it with overuse of the technologies you discuss. Matthew Crawford wrote about this in his books and essays, as have many others. Imagination has been slowly and surely whittled away and, in some case, destroyed. Why do you need an imagination when Jeff Bezos can tell you what to buy, when to buy it, what to watch, when to watch it, what to think, how long to think it... I can't help thinking that during lockdown churches, museums, libraries, schools, pubs, live music venues, restaurants were all inaccessible. These are all places where real human interaction occurs, where imagination, love, beauty, truth, goodness are available. Instead, they mediated our lives through screens and we let them. Human beings can't flourish like this, but the goal of our "elites" is not human flourishing. It is to enrich themselves and enslave the rest of us.
This is a wonderful essay. One of the main reasons that lockdowns were enforced so easily is that we were already primed for it with overuse of the technologies you discuss. Matthew Crawford wrote about this in his books and essays, as have many others. Imagination has been slowly and surely whittled away and, in some case, destroyed. Why do you need an imagination when Jeff Bezos can tell you what to buy, when to buy it, what to watch, when to watch it, what to think, how long to think it... I can't help thinking that during lockdown churches, museums, libraries, schools, pubs, live music venues, restaurants were all inaccessible. These are all places where real human interaction occurs, where imagination, love, beauty, truth, goodness are available. Instead, they mediated our lives through screens and we let them. Human beings can't flourish like this, but the goal of our "elites" is not human flourishing. It is to enrich themselves and enslave the rest of us.