I do video interviews of old North Dakotans as part of the state Oral History Project, and a couple of weeks ago, was fortunate enough to interview two decorated veterans of World War I--one was 104 years old, and fought for the Americans, the other was 106 years old and fought for the Germans. Great. But to the point of technology and change. The American noted that on the farm at the turn of the century, everyone knew how to play a musical instrument, and people frequently got together at one another's houses, or with their brothers and sisters, to play music and dance. Anyway, he came from a farm family, and one day, his father brought home a new Victrola. The kids sad around, listening, enraptured. Then his older brother came in the house, accompanied by an Englishman who has lost the use of his arm so was living in an old abandoned caboose near the farm. They used to help this old Englishman with food, and by giving him odd jobs, so he was always around. When they came in, the Englishman broke into a rage. 'You think that Victrola is a wonderful thing, don't you, he asked. Think it will make life more beautiful. But you are wrong. Look at you, sitting around, not doing anything. I tell you, that thing is going to ruin home entertainment.' 
   The old veteran said he laughed at the time, but in retrospect, noted that in the 1920s, there were so few people who could play a musical instrument in North Dakota that the school systems had to do without, and few people had dance parties at their houses, where people played live music. He thought that maybe the old Englishman was right. Technology. Always a gain, always a loss.
 
'Consider, Sir, answered Sancho, 'that those which appear yonder, 
are not giants, but windmills.'
'It is clear,' answered Don Quixote, 'that you are not versed in the business of adventures....'
                                                     from Don Quixote, chapter 8
 
Robert E. Kibler, PhD
English and Humanities
Valley City State University
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>>> Tim Bray <[log in to unmask]> 01/18 11:15 AM >>>
At 12:11 PM 1/18/00 -0500, Booth, Christopher wrote:
>I concur with Louis here. New things are always blamed for the failings of
>the young in eras when those blaming are perhaps no longer quite so young as
>they were. It is a fallacy, and a silly one. Computers are tools.
 
Speaking as a hardcore geek, Internet builder, and occasional writer,
I'm halfway in the Luddite camp on this one.  The key thing is that
cut-n-paste editing is not the same at all as successive-draft rewriting.
When I'm writing something I really care about, I don't allow myself
to go near it with a text editor until I've done 2 or 3 rewrites; the
passage of the text through the brain seems often to have the effect
of improving both.
 
As to whether students of today are up to the standards of times past,
an argument from consistency suggests that they cannot possibly be; every
generation, going back a couple of millenia, has observed that the young
folks of the following generation are just not up to their own standards,
so why should current times be any different? -T.