The Alternatives
There’s a fine line between technology & tool — at least when it comes to casual parlance. I mean, yes, people will talk about personal technology as a “tool,” but I don’t think many of us think about, say, a hammer as “technology.” In grad school, I had to read Technics and Civilization by Lewis Mumford. I remember it being mind-expanding because although it was published in 1934, Technics and Civilization had a lot to say about “technology” — meaning everything from a clock (sundial, really) to electricity — and how humans use them…and for what outcome. For reference, this was in a Communications and Media Studies discipline so the lesson here is that all these tools were actually technologies that helped shaped our world. (In other words, “technology” doesn’t have to involve the internet.)
I read The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes, and Mumford’s book is the first thing I thought of. Which might be a bit odd because The Alternatives is a very readable and very contemporary novel about four Irish sisters and the ways their bond has both expanded and contracted after the tragic deaths of their parents when they were children/teens. As adults, the sisters are: an Instagram-famous chef concerned about the politics of food production, an adjunct in the Philosophy departments of various Connecticut colleges, a prominent political science professor at Trinity in Dublin who is part of a movers-and-shakers contingency of European policy wonks, and a geologist who has gone off the grid.
Hughes sneakily makes “technology” (the kind that most of us think about) a minor theme; besides the obvious use of social media for the chef, characters are teaching classes virtually, using GPS tracking to find someone, etc. How far can we go in this “technological” world — and can we ever go back? Yet the book also concerns itself with how “land” changes, both from a political standpoint (Brexit) and an environmental standpoint. Again, can we go back — and what “tools” got us here?
Mumford: “The machine itself makes no demands and holds out no promises: it is the human spirit that makes demands and keeps promises.” Words to accompany The Alternatives?
originally published on instagram