Modern Technology

[Craig Clark]

I wrote:
 > Reminds me of a photograph way back in a 1970s _National Geographic_, 
 > showing an Inuit hunkered down in his igloo for the night, playing 
 > with a battery-operated motor-racing track. One of the strangest and 
 > saddest photos I have seen.
 > Craig Clark

Steve Maas replied: 
 > While it is very tempting to decry the "pollution" of native peoples by
 > modern technology (whether in the polar regions or tropical rain forests
 > or wherever), and while I often fall prey to that temptation, the fact is
 > that generally these peoples _want_ TVs and t-shirts and computers when
 > they see them.  Who are we to tell them no, you shouldn't have them,
 > because we like you just the way you are?

This is true, but often only partially true.  What's sad is not that
the Inuit are putting aside carving walrus tusks to play with toy 
racing cars per se: it's that someone thinks of the Inuit principally
as a hitherto unexploited market for toy racing cars.

The people of the developing world are under enormous pressure to 
become consumers of foreign commodities. Last night watching the
Toob I saw not one but two adverts for US-manufactured basketball-
related merchandise. And I thought, Basketball? When did basketball
become a big thing in South Africa? So maybe a lot of SA kids want 
this kind of stuff, but they're being made to want it by the owners 
of the means of production and the owners of the mass media.

Craig Clark

"Living inside the system is like driving across
 the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
 on suicide."
   - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"