HUMA 2920 Final Exam

Monday, 11 April 2005

9 a.m. - noon

Tait MacKenzie Building, Main Gym

Exam format and instructions:

• Three short answer and two essay questions

• Answer ALL THREE short answer questions

• Answer TWO of four available essay questions

• Come on time with working pens and some form of photo identification

• Do not turn over the exam until instructed to do so

Next week we will do extensive exam review during the

scheduled lecture time (Monday, 4 April 2005, 12:30 - 2:20)

Spirituality and Technology?

Working through the interview with Virilio

Virilio is attempting to explore how we create meaning through and about technology. His approach is phenomenological and interpretive.

a sustained study of human experiences, usually descriptive in nature.

Phenomenology

Debord’s hallmarks of spectacle:

• Hegemony becomes reality through simplicity and repetition

• Distraction. Amuse, don’t challenge

• Consumption is the only action• Public becomes private

Baudrillard’s hallmarks of hyperreality:

• Brilliant - inclusive and exclusive

• Rich - better than real

• Pliable - completely open to manipulation, every aspect under control

Virilio’s Take

• New technologies are leading to changes in human experience

• These changes are leading to the transformation of consciousness (a la Ong) in individuals and in society as a whole

Speed and Its Effects (1)• Increasing speed of transportation was

rooted in war technology (from war of seige to war of movement)

• Increasing speed (including transfer of data at the speed of light) has broken the limits and boundaries of real space

• We now experience multiple realities (many events in many locations) in “real time”

Speed and Its Effects (2)

• We loose our sense of place and history, our belonging to the “local”

• Globalization is “virtualization” of space

• Virtualization undermines democracy

Speed and Its Effects (3)“Reality is no longer defined by time and space, but in a virtual world, in which technology allows the existence of the paradox of being everywhere at the same time while being nowhere at all. The loss of the site/city/nation in favor of globalization implies also the loss of rights and of democracy that is contrary to the immediate and instantaneous nature of information. In his view, McLuhan's global village is nothing but a 'World Ghetto'.”http://www.egs.edu/resources/virilio.html

Accident as a Paradigm• Exposes the flaws in the system (e.g.

derailments)

• Resulted from increasing speed which leaves no room for error

• Entwined with technology: every technological invention gives birth to a new form of accident (e.g. nuclear power led to the possibility of nuclear accidents and the reality of Chernobyl)

Television: Museum of Accidents

• Museum is a metaphor• Television images (particularly CNN

and other round-the-clock newscasts) relay accidents from anywhere, anytime

• The result is our loss of orientation in the local: loss of our sense of place and history

“Unknown Quantity”

• An exhibition about accidents based on Virilio’s concepts

• http://www.onoci.net/virilio/index_uk.php

Critique of Virilio

• How is our sense of reality shaped?

• Simulation vs. substitution

• Technological determinism

• The god thing

Questions

• What shapes our sense of reality besides physical sensation?

• If virtuality becomes a substitution for reality, then what happens to our agency? [Think this in terms of civil rights and democracy.]

• Starting from Virilio’s premise that virtuality is a quest to be God, then what kind of God are we imagining?