Sunday, April 02, 2017

Is the shoe horn going the way of the wash board?

Technology is a topic of great interest among tech professionals, scholars, and the general public. But usually the interest is only generated by the latest innovations or futuristic improbabilities.



What has begun to intrigue me is, how in the passage of time, low technologies tend to quietly fade away.

Take for example, the shoe horn.

Who remembers the shoe horn its appearance, history and eventual transformation from a physical manifestation into a metaphor?

Or the paper weight (in a "paperless" society).  Read George Orwell's comments in 1994 on the value(lessness) of a lone silvery glassed-in flower-globe displayed on an aging wooden table.

Wikipedia provides a concise history and explanation of the washboard (but to learn how first uses fade over time, read the disambiguation section).

All of which to say is while high technology, digitization, computerization, mobile devices, etc. and so forth attract far more than their share of attention, some basics should be thoughtfully considered as part of a fleeting way of life. How can we evaluate the impact of loss and change over the 32,000 years of our doggie-human cultural formation?

Thank you, my friends and fans, for any insights you may care to offer.

As always, your pal, Mercury Murphy Roushanzamir


No comments: