Inspiration For My Research

In May 2010, I had the privilege of beingness able to send ethnography at a highways maintenance company, where I observed the company’s scheduler do his work. The procedure was convoluted, bewildering, in addition to what I tin dismiss alone depict equally “soul destroying.” The information he was manipulating was abstracted to such a aeroplane that the concept of this information representing actual humans was no longer relevant to the occupation at hand, which itself was becoming petty to a greater extent than than an Excel box-moving exercise. This misfortunate guy worked until viii at night, every night, pushing packets of information closed to inward a spreadsheet. It occurred to me that something was incorrect with the manner nosotros railroad train engineering scientific discipline that nosotros stimulate got allowed this sort of technological appointment to larn the dominant design.

For several years, I stimulate got suspected that something is really incorrect virtually the human relationship nosotros humans stimulate got to the objects of our creation. It is equally if nosotros stimulate got laid upwardly inward motion something nosotros tin dismiss no longer command which has immediately larn our master. We are The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, in addition to our engineering scientific discipline is the out of command mops in addition to buckets, doing what they volition despite our efforts to halt them; in addition to to a greater extent than worryingly, nosotros are mesmerized past times their magical animation, in addition to nosotros bring that they volition run amok for eternity. As an undergraduate, I investigated the ways inward which Consumerism was contributing to increased rates of anxiety in addition to depression with American adolescents. I concluded that these products – clothes, technology, whatever – had transcended their component subdivision equally mere objects to larn meta-objects, i.e. surrounded past times constellations of culturally generated meanings which invest the object with much to a greater extent than than its inherent economical value. It is this trading of meanings that makes objects useful for the purposes of identity formation for the adolescent; simply the transience of these objects makes position formation itself unstable, hence leading to greater anxiety in addition to depression for those who stimulate got objectified their identities inside the commodity.

In the years since that research, my hunch that something is amiss persists, though I immediately realize that the work is far to a greater extent than insidious than I had previously considered. As if it is non hard plenty to challenge Consumerism, I am immediately at the indicate that I recognize that for anything to change, nosotros stimulate got to challenge the foundations upon which Consumerism is based: our really worldview. Consumerism, I would argue, is alone 1 manifestation of a deeply disturbed technological image that glorifies technologies in addition to subjectifies the human such that he is no longer a individual in addition to so much equally an object in addition to musical instrument of utilitarian, extractable value.

The mission I stimulate got accepted for myself for this PhD is grand: I desire to suggest an option technological paradigm, 1 which seeks to rectify the problems articulated to a higher house that I stimulate got begun to telephone yell upwardly “the spiritual disconnect;” i.e. the manner inward which profoundly important, specifically human values stimulate got been largely ignored. In other words, I desire to explore how nosotros mightiness blueprint technologies that facilitate soul-satisfying experiences of engagement. The get-go footstep towards this solution is perfectly clear: correct the pyramid 1 time again, in addition to so that human values classify the footing upon which nosotros railroad train technologies, equally opposed to beingness (if considered at all) an afterthought. But what this agency inward damage of the manifested technologies, the manner nosotros contend data, the novel potentials for human appointment (both with technologies in addition to with each other), in addition to indeed for our psychologies, is the mass of my proposed research.