Chapter 5, "The Digital Revolution in Muslim Cultures"

Bowers hands over the wheel to Joseph Progler and Azra Kianinejad in this chapter.  The co-authors first provide a theoretical framework for addressing their central concern and then provide several concrete examples from Iran and other Muslim nations to illustrate their thesis.

I don't have much to say about their theorizing which recapitulates much of what Bowers has said in Chapters 1-4.  I question their assertion that: "Communication technologies and social media, while promoting the illusion of connecting people with each other and with information, undermine face-to-face and intergenerational relationships with the past, with one another, with knowledge of the environment" (p. 46).  To be fair, I might have different working definitions of each of these terms, but I think communication technologies/social media can sustain healthy relationships between friends and family.  Indeed, I personally rely on them.   I also find the following assertion puzzling: "Colonization proceeds in moving away from local cultures and traditions and toward global ones that are promoted as universal" (p. 49).  I don't know what they mean by "global", but surely this statement should read "and toward Western ideology."  The shift isn't from local to global; it's from colonized/oppressed to colonizer/oppressor, which might very well purport to be "universal".  That might be a minor point, but it treats the power dynamics more seriously.

I like the coauthors' discussion of the hierarchy of knowledge in the digital revolution: "...digital technologies have a profound impact on culture by sifting, sorting, and prioritizing one form of knowledge, that which is print based and easily digitized, over other forms of knowledge that are vernacular, experiential, and non-digitizable" (p. 52).  Yet, I would add that the printed word is not paramount but rather the image, moving image, and accompanying sound are (i.e. pictures, clips, and movies).  Online cultures are dominantly concrete and visual/imagery-based, at least in my experience with youth culture in the U.S.  I also know that the digital revolution enables many local subcultures (as small as friend groups on Instagram and Snapchat and as geographically large as affinity groups on Facebook) to flourish.

Toward the end, I kept thinking, What do they mean?  And, not necessarily.  "Digitization creates an ephemeral abstract world of free-floating information detached from people and places that makes all books look the same and reduces the reading experience to the uniform scanning of electronic texts" (p. 57).  Really?  How so?

Their examples of local traditions replaced because of the digital revolution were puzzling and sometimes anachronistic (e.g. their longing for illuminated manuscripts (?) - that ship sailed 700 years ago).  There are many reasons why people no longer organize locally to track the movements of the sun and moon for religious ceremony and why there is no longer a professional singer for the call to prayer.  Their view strikes me as nostalgic, though I do see how the more direct relationship with nature to organize religious events on a local scale would lead to greater reverence for the Earth.  So maybe they're onto something.

Bowers, Chapters 3 & 4

I have read several times Chapter 3 "Misconceptions About Language" and Ch. 4 "Digital Colonization" which work closely together.

Ch. 3 discusses the ways that unthinking/uncritical/unquestioning "computer futurist writers" do not understand the "reality constructing nature of language" (p. 26).  In their view, language, especially the written word, is merely a "conduit" for the communication of objective knowledge.  This view or collection of assumptions about language, according to Bowers, is hazardous, for it leaves out "the dynamic, emergent, and relational processes occurring as people interact with each other and with the environment" (p. 27).  Moreover, it perpetuates a Western interpretive framework/ideology/worldview that is capitalist and consumer-driven.  The latter two, of course, lead to the abuse and exploitation of the Earth's resources and ecological devastation.

Ch. 4 builds on this argument, furthering the claim that Western technologies are the latest form of imperialism and colonization.  The same computer scientists and capitalists believe Western culture, as reproduced and disseminated in the English language with its implicit ways of thinking, is superior to "local" cultures. The latter, for Bowers, are much more ecologically-minded: "But many of these oral cultures have acquired knowledge of local ecosystems that is quite astonishing... Survival for these oral cultures depended upon their ability to adapt their values and practices to what the natural systems could sustain" (p. 39, my emphasis).

Bowers concludes Ch. 4 by showing the "hubris" of a Western attempt at colonization in Peru, viz. the "One Laptop Per Child" program and then describing an alternative educational program that preserves local culture.

For me, these were my two favorite chapters thus far.  Bowers (finally!) gives clear examples.  He also explains the way that languages have embedded ideologies and that part of our roles as speakers in a language community after primary socialization is to investigate and sometimes interrogate our language for its assumptions about reality.

I also appreciated his examples of "non-technological" approaches to education which embrace tradition: "Learning is face-to-face, and what is shared is how to exercise ecological intelligence--that is, to be aware and interpret the information and others semiotic signs of how to nurture relationships in both local cultural and environmental ecologies" (p. 45).  But here I wonder, in his embrace of localism, is he romanticizing local cultures?  Wouldn't it be beneficial for every language community to understand its own assumptions and prejudices?  That seems like a responsible task for anyone on this planet, to get out of our own ego- and socio-centrism.

Lastly, I read his "three misconceptions" (p. 40) with great interest and an open mind.  They are: (1) computers are mere tools, (2) the accuracy of constructivism, and (3) the importance of literacy for the modern world.  I happen to believe all three misconceptions, alas... But I think I understand his rationale, except perhaps for #2.