Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Technopoly, The Surrender of Culture to Technology - Neil Postman

***
This book was interesting. Amazingly pertienant dispite the technological advances since it's publication (1992). Some of the themes which caught my attention were: science as another "religion" (not exactly Postman's words), the "solution" of education, and what is lost when technology is gained.
Some of my favorite quotes:
"whenever we need a revolution, we get a new curriculum" - Lawrence Cremin pg. 185
"Take the great narratives of religion seriously and do not beliece that science is the only system of thought capable of producing truth." pg. 184

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Peter: **
Just finished The Brothers Karamazov.  That was a long book!  Its character development and depth are both heralded as exemplary types that defined a genre, but I disagree! :-)  I found the characters flat and incongruent, and it was difficult to empathize with their insanity.  The plot meandered aimlessly, trying to add secondary shade to our heros and villains, but instead they left the reader in a quagmire of superfluous details, orthogonal to the main plot, which was introduced 3/4 of the way through the book!