Digital Mythologies Quotes

“Media saturation is a fact of contemporary life. It fosters a need to react. We now live much of our lives quasi-vicariously through the ever present lens of the mediasphere, the accelerated gestalt of which creates a sense of urgency that is sometimes merited and sometimes not. Reaction versus reflection and deliberation, therefore, is a central motif in considering the sociocultural effects of the paradigm shift from print media to electronic media. But it is also an important and unpleasant side effect of contemporary culture that is frequently overlooked.”
― Thomas S. Valovic, Digital Mythologies: The Hidden Complexities of the Internet

“I do not wish to suggest that the information explosion that has taken place in the last twenty years is necessarily a bad thing. What I do wish to point out is that it badly needs to be put into perspective. To do that we must ask a few basic questions. First, is there truly such a thing as too much information? Second, is there an inverse relationship between the quality of information and the quantity of information? Third, what is the relationship between information, knowledge, and wisdom, and how do we distinguish among them in the shifting context that is the information age?”
― Thomas S. Valovic, Digital Mythologies: The Hidden Complexities of the Internet

“There is a wild card in the formulation of an answer to this conundrum: In some deep and unexplained way, the realm of the ancient is tied to our notions of an amorphously envisioned postmodern future. For those who require a larger context to see this process in action, the outlines of this shadow-puzzle are evident in contemporary literature. In Michael Crichton’s novel Congo, images of high technology subtly resonate with images of our primal ancestry. In the movie 2001, based on the science-fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke, the image of the mysterious monolith is juxtaposed against landscapes familiar only to our primitive forebears.”
― Thomas S. Valovic, Digital Mythologies: The Hidden Complexities of the Internet

“If the vigorous clash of ideas that constitutes the anarchic pluralism of the Net can ever congeal into a value system (and not just an online phenomenon), then such an event may provide some much needed clues toward solving the essential sociopolitical conundrums of our age: cultural relativism and epistemological gridlock. The Net may, in this sense, be the ultimate postmodern phenomenon.”
― Thomas S. Valovic, Digital Mythologies: The Hidden Complexities of the Internet

“My biggest concern about the stance of the thought leaders of digital culture toward the Net is their lack of gravitas about the things they are trying to replace—the grand traditions of scholarship and learning that, as if tainted with guilt by association, are held to be lacking simply because they are represented in the medium that we call the book. This strikes me as a kind of superstition-in-reverse. It is all a bit too facile and trendy, and I do not quite know how to account for the stampede to the virtual other than viewing it as a strange media virus affecting otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people.”
― Thomas S. Valovic, Digital Mythologies: The Hidden Complexities of the Internet

“The Net may have the potential at least to become a vehicle for reconciling the postmodern Pandora’s box of jarringly subjective truths in so far as they can be reconciled. Or, alternatively, perhaps such a notion is a pleasant chimera that leads us toward an impossible-to-manage cultural entropy.”
― Thomas S. Valovic, Digital Mythologies: The Hidden Complexities of the Internet

“creation”
― Thomas S. Valovic, Digital Mythologies: The Hidden Complexities of the Internet

“advent”
― Thomas S. Valovic, Digital Mythologies: The Hidden Complexities of the Internet

“My biggest concern about the stance of the thought leaders of digital culture toward the Net is their lack of gravitas about the things they are trying to replace—the grand traditions of scholarship and learning that, as if tainted with guilt by association, are held to be lacking simply because they are represented in the medium that we call the book. This strikes me as a kind of superstition-in-reverse.”
― Thomas S. Valovic, Digital Mythologies: The Hidden Complexities of the Internet

“I must agree with social critic Camille Paglia that our educational horizons have narrowed seriously and unacceptably and, absent a major correction, will continue to do so. There is enormous value to be derived from the online world, but the notion that the Net will replace what Robert Maynard Hutchins called the “Great Conversation”—the ongoing narrative of scholarship and the great traditions of learning—is specious. Accordingly, I have argued that the Net and other digital technologies should not replace wholesale the methods of information dissemination now in place—and this replacement is the fervent wish of digital culture—but rather should augment and amplify our existing modalities.”
― Thomas S. Valovic, Digital Mythologies: The Hidden Complexities of the Internet

“There is no question that the virtual world has its attractions. But it also has limitations, and our experiment with it is an awfully large one to undertake with a riverboat gambler’s stance toward the future of society and the world our children will inherit. I am convinced that we cannot afford the luxury that we have had with other technologies of saying implement first and ask questions later.”
― Thomas S. Valovic, Digital Mythologies: The Hidden Complexities of the Internet

“The proponents of digital culture were long on enthusiasm and on vague, effusive Emersonian assertions that were distressingly short”
― Thomas S. Valovic, Digital Mythologies: The Hidden Complexities of the Internet