Magnifica Humanitas

This book is the first papal encyclical from Pope Leo XIV, and it's a banger. Perhaps just as much so as Francis's Laudato Si'. It's concerned primarily with the human challenges that AI is going to (or is already) bring, situated firmly in a sociopolitical context informed by the Catholic Church's Social Doctrine. I'm by no means a Catholic but I found this a very Christian very compelling read - Leo says things like "A more moral AI is not enough if that morality is determined by a few. What is needed is a more active political involvement that is capable of slowing things down when everything is accelerating, and of protecting the opportunities for communities still to be able to participate and ask questions." and "To speak of justice requires questioning the global distribution of power that decides who in fact can train these models and who is merely subjected to them. Likewise, it means acknowledging that social justice is not only a goal to be safeguarded after technologies are deployed, but a condition that must shape their very design from the outset." Based as fuck.

   If you're a Catholic yourself I halfway imagine this may be compulsory reading, but even if you're not a Christian and are in any shape concerned about the trajectory of AI in our global economy, this is worth a read. It's online for free from my given link, you can read the whole thing in two or three hours.

What Would Jesus Post?

This book by David Robertson takes that classic wristband acronym WWJD* and transplants it into the chaotic modern context of social media - hence the title. It's a good question. Were history's most famous Nazarene to have accounts on one of those half-dozen websites that constitute today's internet, what kind of content would he be putting out? Would he be a TikTok influencer? Instagram inspirer? YouTube video essayist? Twitter rage-debater? Reddit helper-outer of strangers lost in Google searches? Verbose blogger? Tumblr sharer of unprompted unhinged angles on stuff? Facebook shitposter? Some combination of any or all of the above? We simply don't know.**

   That doesn't mean we can't take the lessons learned from him and try our best to apply them to the communications landscape in which we find ourselves today, and I think Robertson has done a pretty solid job in this book of applying 2000ish-year-old meta-ethical precepts to Very New Paradigms of Possibility. It's far from a comprehensive*** manual, but as a starting point offers some healthy and biblical broad principles we can bear in mind as we engage with online communities as Christians. I think this is a very helpful and well thought-out book, and I would highly recommend it as a resource - most especially for older generations who have immigrated to the internet after an analogue life, and so aren't as adept as The Youth at navigating the psychosocial turbulence that all online society entails.

   Before concluding this post, I will give a special mention to the format of the chapters in this book, as they're all broken down into the same sections that help lend flow and intentionality to the reading process. We open with an introductory overview of "the way it is", before digging deeper into some relevant theological concepts, then having a "pause for thought" in which what's just been discussed is thrown over to us to particularly consider, after which in a "joining the dots" section we consider contextual or social elements that apply what we've just read to the realities of contemporary internet use, then "a way forward" points us toward particular behaviours or attitudes that help us maintain Christian consistency on these issues, a Bible verse or two with an explanation of how it helps us navigate this, "wisdom from the Psalms" as far as I can tell being simply a nice balm to the soul to concentrate on the spiritual side of life rather than being prompted to relate everything back to the online, and finally a few questions to prompt further thought. The length and order of these sections varies chapter to chapter but overall they are consistent throughout the book and make it a much more engaging discipleship experience as a reader.

* "What Would Jesus Do?" for you heathens unfamiliar.

** My money's split between Facebook shitposting and completely out-of-left-field Tumblr dumps, both of which would be essentially parables converted to fit the format. If ministry responsibilities left him with enough free time he'd probably have a YouTube channel with over 10,000,000 views but only 372 subscribers, on which the Tumblr parables are delivered vocally (as you'd expect, the comments sections are full of confusion, people who only watched the first ten seconds, and a minority of people saying "this changed my life"). He'd probably have Twitter, but unless he had something that absolutely HAD to be said there and then, he'd only use it for ironically retweeting Pharisees and Roman officials. If anyone in Jesus's orbit has a blog it's probably Matthew, and Peter and John would have competing Instagram and TikTok accounts documenting the day-to-day doings of the disciples.

*** There are chapters on: the internet as a public arena, prayer, porn, confession, sowing seeds, our digital tongue, dwelling in God's presence, wisdom and discernment, humility, hospitality and generosity, the Sabbath, spiritual gifts, spiritual fruit, gossip, persecution, the footprints we leave, and community. For a pretty short book it covers a lot of ground, but with Christianity and the internet both being as diversely complexly themselves as they are, one can easily imagine entire books being written about any of these chapters. Which is what I mean when I say this is more of an introductory provocation text.

Why I am not going to buy a computer

This book, a Penguin Moderns release comprising two essays by American pastoral poet Wendell Berry, is a brilliant, enlightening and challenging read on diverse topics brought together into a powerful tangible whole.

   The first [eponymous] essay is a very short but deeply cogent manifesto, on modernity's over-reliance on information technology, and how amid the changing nature of work by these tools, Berry, a farmer and writer, ruminates on the primacy of the pencil over the keyboard for his latter craft just as he prefers time-tried hand-work over surrendering to the growing preference for new-fangled gadgetry in the agricultural field.* What struck me on bristling at some of his arguments is the sincerity, well-meaningness and eloquence with which the case is made; some double the number of pages taken up by this essay are given over to printing original letters sent into the magazine where it was published and several of these questions (it must be said, varying in relevance & graciousness) are given fullish appropriate responses by Berry - however he also mentions that numerous letters received about thus were directly critical & presumptive about his relationship with his wife, particularly regarding the nature of domestic work; touching a personal nerve, the responses herein go on to form;

   The second, Feminism, the Body and the Machine, is more an academic freestyle on defending the basic nuances ignored by feminists, would-be's & aren'ts in the (admittedly shallow) critique of Berry's domestic-economic situation blurted in response to some lines of his above piece. His arguments in this are wide-ranging, complex and yet I think quite convincing - and while I found much I thought I was going to disagree with him on during the reading by the time he'd wrapped it up I found myself apologetically onside. Well worth a read on its own merit as offers a really interesting male perspective on current (or maybe, generationally, arguably just pre-current-ish) gender norms & how these link in with spheres of political-economic and technological reality & attitude.

   Overall these two brief pieces bring a fresh-yet-bucolic vision to long-standing debates; and however much you want to scream at this patriarchal Luddite - give him a read and think for yourself. Definitely a recommended little book if you're into exploring the quiet hidden interconnections of the tools, personalities and structures making up modernity.

* No pun intended.

Notes on a Nervous Planet

This book by Matt Haig is a punchily honest & disarmingly thoughtful series of reflections on how we can try to maintain our mental health in a world increasingly beholden by all of our modern era's weirdnesses, stresses, etc: drawing on everyday biographical snippets and pretty robust common sense this book skips around a lot but weaves together a bright cogent narrative of our Real Living Selves, navigating political chaos, new technologies, & all the myriad fuckeries these bring to bear on our poor battered brains. Personally I got a lot of encouraging ammunition from this book to apply to my own struggles with the stuff Haig* talks about here; I'd highly recommend this to anyone similarly looking for some kind of individual stability and reasonableness throughout the bluster that is becoming of this fucking decade.

* Btw it is indeed same author as this fantastic novel, which in itself was inspired by Haig's own disassociative experiences with extreme depression & anxiety, as further unpacked in this other more testimonial work.

Notes on 'Camp'

This book is a Penguin Modern re-publication of two essays by Susan Sontag, the titular Notes on 'Camp' and One Culture and the New Sensibility; both are densely thought-provoking but quite readable and very short (I read both in one go while babysitting for my younger brothers). It's difficult to summarise what she's talking about without being grossly reductive: both are very broad and deep essays, and though their main focus is the nature of consumed creative-cultural content, the ways in which this has notably changed through history is discussed with a deftness and nuance that is hugely enriching given the wealth of social, political, economic, technological and psychological trends and concepts which she brings to bear on this infuriatingly intangibly unanswerable question - that of, what is art for? And therefore what constitutes good taste?

   'Camp' may be rudely described as that which is 'so bad it's good', but only raises more questions about what good meant in the first place, and therefore how something might be perceived as bad, and ways in which ironic or detached (yet still wholehearted, more-or-less) enjoyment of such a bad thing might make it be perceived as a sort-of-good thing, but when others then try to emulate what makes these bad/(good?) things bad/(good?) it either comes across as pretentious or it lowers the bar. Either way, for all the surgical meditations on the user's aesthetic experience which Sontag lays out here, the questions underpinning both essays are far from settled philosophically - and given the rapidity with which culture and our technological means of consuming or engaging with it continue to change,* I'm not sure there is much more than a few grains of truth about these painfully convoluted realms of intersubjectivity to be found throughout this essay. That's not to say it isn't a thoroughly interesting springboard into the basic outlines of these as things to think about though.

   Anyway, the second essay is much more objective - instead of trying to lay out clear guidelines for what constitutes 'camp' taste, she here explores the shifting role that art plays in affluent post-industrial societies with mass communication technology. The brute accessibility of pretty much everything has broken down the barriers between 'high' and 'low' culture, argues Sontag, leading to a frenzy of experimentation with forms and media that see art increasingly calling itself into question through its very self, in a combination of content, style, and context; things are no longer created as timeless artifacts for the proven taste of aristocratic norm-wranglers, but are fluid, self-aware, daring - in ways which mirror the development of science as a continual force progressing by learning from and building upon itself, so art is increasingly created not only as singular entities but as ongoing collective ruminations on meaning, ever being deconstructed and reconstructed afresh for new audiences or in response to new events or to take opportunity of a new means of creating a particular thing...

   I will end here, as this is a topic I could probably spool on about almost indefinitely, and at the very least I don't want to write a post longer than the book it's about.

* An amusing testament to this is that most of the pop-culture references she makes, being from the early sixties at the latest, went straight over my head. Which, in fairness, is likely part of why I didn't find her range of points as comprehensively convincing as I might have.

OFF. your digital detox for a better life

This book by Tanya Goodin is basically what it says on the tin - a kickstart book for those who want to, or feel or think they want to, or want to want to, embark upon some extent of digital detox. To be honest I just read it because it's short and I didn't have much to do this afternoon, and my flatmate Adam (whose it is) said it had some quite nice little tips in it - also last week I watched all the new series of Black Mirror, and (though I've been slowly digitally detoxifying myself in all regards but YouTube and Netflix for the past year or so, the insidious tendrils of social media still cling to me far too closely day by day) am inspired anew to maintain my course of steadily weaning myself off extraneous usage of the internet, especially in its mobile forms.

   It's practically perfect for its purported function. Goodin splits the book up into six sections, each peppered with soothing and attractive images of whatever non-screeny activities a given page is exhorting its pixel-addled reader to undertake, and while not at all text-heavy, the prose therein is focused but accessible, giving clear explanations of the simple human flaws or needs that give rise to a particular aspect of digital addiction and simple human strengths or needs that provide straightforward avenues for behaviours and attitudes to escape.

1. Setting boundaries - this section has really good common-sense hints, like putting aside certain times for not using screen-based technology, committing to not using it before bed, at mealtimes, whatever.
2. Go with the flow - basically just a list of mindful activities to try out instead of going by default onto a screen whenever boredom itches; e.g. cooking, reading, colouring, jigsaws, exercise, etc.
3. Get back to nature - extending the mindfulness out of your house! Go for a walk and look at clouds! Sit on some grass or near some water! Plant something!
4. Tame your triggers - common-sense tips on structuring your lifestyle or adjusting your technologies to reduce the temptations they exude.
5. Choose analogue - using difficult and esoteric methods known these days only to hipsters and people older than 37, can you work out how to perform basic tasks without using smartphones or the internet? Give it a go!
6. Reconnect - social media is a lie! The real social network is the innavigable shambles of delightful abundant beautiful mess comprising human civilisation, and guess what, you and everyone you know have free lifelong accounts, and the range of options for creative and positive interactions between users is almost limitless!

   Frankly, I don't feel like I've learned very much from this book, but that's because I'm a reader with a well-developed suspicion of the digital world anyway, and so much of the content herein struck me as being wonderfully basic. But it still needs saying. My generation is one lost looking down its own nose, crippled by its own self-induced anxiety and loneliness, and I dearly hope this book may spark people who need it into choosing to be present and awake in their own lives. Would make an excellent gift-book to your friend who's always on their phone and always seems sadder than they think they are.

You Are Not A Gadget

This book, a manifesto from veritable guru Jaron Lanier, was one of the most thought-provoking and relevant things I've read in years. I acquired it out of sheer curiosity a few months ago and read it during the quiet lapses while I've been travelling across western Europe for the last two weeks.
   Content-wise, there's not much I'll say about it because there would be far too much to say beyond a rough overview of the topic and points. Jaron Lanier has been one of the most influential people in Silicon Valley for decades, primarily researching into virtual reality and human relationships with digital systems, and as such he has a huge amount of very worthwhile things to say about those relationships. Basically, in the last decade or so, the trends of technology and the internet have started taking that relationship down a road that he's uncomfortable with, and this book is his cry to call attention before it's too late for us to steer our increasingly-internet-dependent societies in a better direction.
   The problems he sees are many and varied and extraordinarily well-articulated, and if you're interested in the internet and its effect on people and potential dangers or hopes for change then I can only point you to his book and exhort you to read it. Seriously, he knows his stuff and presses some challenging but difficult to contend conclusions. At the core of Jaron's argument is that digital systems innovated this century, especially in spheres such as social networks, crowd cooperatives, and cloud-sourcing media, dehumanise their users and devalue their content. This is largely to do with confusions about what constitutes personhood and identity; the difference between an individual and a profile or between information and knowledge; the problem of anonymity in usership lending no obligations to respectful behaviour; the problem of monopolisation in distributors of creative services; and many others.
   Like I said, the book touches on dozens of deep intriguing problems centred around our ties to the digital world - I'm barely scratching the surface. Each topic is very in-depth and poses further questions to the reader, and since this blog is supposedly about my thoughts in reaction to a book rather than just a plain book review, I may as well go over some of my main thoughts, though in keeping with what I've been saying I'll try to focus on my responses instead of summarising his arguments that I responded to. The chapter on creative media struck me; it's currently very difficult for independent entertainment producers to make money through their work. Outside of a handful of unrepresentatively lucky examples, mainstream success requires huge corporate backing investment, cloud streaming services give a pittance to the artists, physical sales are tough as digital availability is so easy (either pirated or by download from giant firms big enough to subsidise them), and even being paid for "real" things like live performances is hard to come by without an strong artist profile, which one can't really get without being able to succeed in visibility, which given the other factors, a lot can't. My response? I've stopped downloading music (my iPod's full enough anyway that I can survive off newly-bought CD's or the occasional gig), and started feeling guilty about certain dependencies. Ah well. What else did I have an interesting reaction to? Seemed like at least once every two pages I pulled a face in confused mindblown suspicion as I wrestled with obscure phrases ("Bachelardian neoteny" was my favourite of these) or compellingly weird points (he argues towards the end, in a spur of slightly-irrelevant genius, that if octupuses had childhoods they'd be the dominant species, which was delightful I thought), but most of the book is so far wound into a particular topic that unscrewing one's train of thought from what it was at time of reading without having to reread is proving difficult. It didn't help that we were travelling through Europe while I was reading this, so there were distractions aplenty - in fact the day I finished it, we went to a giant beergarden in Munich and made friends with a Texan socialist over several litres of German lager so tasty that the prospect of leaving for France the next day made us teary. Anyway, I digress.
   This is a great book. Be warned: though his writing style is comfortable enough, once he's introduced a particular term for a concept up for discussion he will casually reuse it and mash it together with existing or priorly-invented terms to aid the flow of his argument and somewhat confuse the less involved reader. It's quite intellectually strenuous, many of his chapters delving not only into relatively advanced computer science but also psychology and philosophy of mind. A bit of a challenge to read, and challenging ideas-wise too, but if mankind's relationship with the increasingly-independent internet interests you, look no further.