wfn.org | Derrick deKerchove Addresses Technology Effects on Humans at RCC 2000

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@wfn.org>]

Religious Communication Congress 2000
http://www.rcc2000.org
Dan Gangler, coordinator of news and information
DRG1946@aol.com
Newsroom telephone during Congress 312-595-3151

Scholar unravels Web concerns

By Maureen Rodgers

CHICAGO ­ In a summary of the history of human intelligence, communication 
and technology, Derrick deKerckhove raised profound questions about the 
effects of human interaction with technology.
DeKerckhove is director of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology 
and Professor of French at the University of Toronto.  He spoke March 31 to 
several hundred communicators at the Religious Communications Congress 2000 
in Chicago.

Author of Connected Intelligence: Communicating in the Web Society, and a 
colleague of the late Marshall McLuhan, deKerckhove defined connected 
intelligence as "the oldest human form of communication; the basis and the 
norm of human communication," distinct from private and collective 
intelligence.

But because "everybody is global on-line," deKerckhove fears "a 
redistribution of power" in the World Wide Web society, that may be 
accompanied by "new schismatic tendencies," dangerous to the human 
community. He also noted "the fragility" of the English language, currently 
"revered and reviled as the language of the Internet."  But he foresees 
opportunities for dialogue and the possible "regeneration of pastoral 
communication."
According to deKerckhove, computer networks, such as e-mail, best represent 
"the nature of human communication," because they allow people to "share 
memory and intelligence."

He characterized the Internet as "a social central nervous system," of 
human communication, offering both private and public access, and being 
"neither individual nor collective but connective."

His conclusions are based on the premise that intelligence is rooted in 
"the word" expressed in speaking, listening, reading, writing and thinking. 
Each action of mind and body, whether internalized or communicated with 
others, possesses its own unique power to "connect," that is, to create, 
share and organize human knowledge, experience and community.  The 
interactivity in which "the user shapes the content" changes both and a 
partnership is created.
Since the invention of the printing press and the publication of the Bible, 
technology has created divisions as well as unity in society, deKerckhove 
said. Issues of power and control are implicit in all forms of human 
communication.
  "The explosive effect of the alphabet," he said, created "private control 
over mind and language, faith and understanding. Either language owns you - 
as in radio and television - or you own the language."

The advent of electricity, however, created an "implosion" of unity and 
healing as ecologism, ecumenism and the global village mythologies 
emphasized our interdependence as a human family.

In a sometimes witty, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes serious analysis 
of the new technologies of the "The
Web Society," deKerckhove compared television and computer interactivity 
technologies.  In "the emigration of mind from head to screen," he 
characterized television as the most "external" medium, "outside the mind 
and body."
On the other hand, computers represent "the acceleration of mind on 
screen," a form of interactivity which involves a positive sharing of 
responsibility and control. "Your thinking is shared between you and the 
technology," he said, pointing to the way children actively "play" computer 
games as opposed to their passive "watching" of TV.
In deKerckhove's analysis of the effects of Web technologies on church 
communities, which he called E-vangelization ("E- for everything"), he 
noted that this phenomenon is very different from televangelism.  The 
electronic/cyberspace era offers communication benefits such as direct 
access and personal contacts with members of the community, especially 
through e-mail, but he anticipates that "the dominant and primary form (of 
communication)" in the church will remain "face-to-face versus on-line 
communication."

He also anticipates that the new technologies will be very beneficial to 
education in developing countries and very important to developing global 
church relationships.

"The new technologies will create ‘The New Community,' deKerckhove 
asserted, since "the Internet favors community maintaining rather than 
building," strengthening religious communities by ending isolation for 
many, and by forming "just-in-time" support groups for others. An 
additional and unseen technological benefit is that the oral and immediate 
history of the community will be instantly archived.

DeKerckhove said: "Spirituality is profoundly connective, and hence not 
adverse to the Internet. Spirituality is independent, but not indifferent, 
and each person has a connective responsibility."  Because "the Internet is 
not a mass culture," quality becomes the issue, not quantity, and "the 
smaller voice can be heard over the larger institutional voice. There is no 
greater power than language."

Acknowledging a cosmic "change of scale" involving "a huge expansion of 
time and space" symbolized by the
millennium and satellites, deKerckhove noted that the personal scale is 
also "enlarged and all-at-once.  This technology puts the world in our 
hands."
He ended with two challenges to the interfaith communicators. "There is a 
tremendous need for a religious presence on-line. Can we find and foster 
spirituality in the new technologies?"

Then, noting the globalization of new technologies and their profound 
impact on self and world, he asked: "How do we interpret these changes?"

END