On Wed, 2005-11-23 at 23:01 +0530, Sayamindu Dasgupta wrote: > Hi all, > I have uploaded a PDF version of a lecture given to the Refresher Course > for teachers of Applied Psychology in Calcutta University by Dipankar-da > to the ilug-cal site.
I showed this document to a friend who has more experience in philosophy and culture studies than me. His points were interesting and I've paraphrase his views: ------------------------ ... Colonialism is not the most obvious axis of analysis for this. A better model is provided by Marxism's analysis of labour and the progressive degrees of alienation ... ... is a phenomenon of advanced capitalism and I don't think is limited to a colonized mode of subjection. Is there a way to avoid this or can we just analyze and make people aware that "you are being subjected and alienated"? ... The solution offered is an old one but insuffiecient - it implies resisting subjection thru enlightenment - figuring out how to use a command line instead of icons - but is that really less mediated than a GUI? It's a different KIND of mediation but not any more closer to a kind of truthful "essence" of a what a computer should be. This sort of what is termed "reification" - when you set up an idea of what a thing "really" is and set it up as an unmediated "truth", substituting it for the thing-in-itself. Like assuming that a command promt is inherently, by nature closer to computer-ness than a GUI. ------------------------ I think that the points raised in the third para are interesting. According to the original document and A. Mani's post, the 'truth' about computing could be learned by learning the CLI. So why not go one level down and then say the real truth is obtained when you can program the CPU directly, aka, assembly and so on. Clearly, this is not a useful solution. So I think the fundamental question is: What is the truthful essence of what a computer should be. And in my mind the answer is - whatever it is you want it to be. If I want a GUI for data entry or a GUI to view MRI scans, thats what the computer is to me. And if that does my job, what other truth does the CLI offer me? Once again, its not only programmers, sysadmins and CS students that use computers. Everybody does. And I can assure you that not all of them are clerks! ------------------------------------------------------------------- Rajarshi Guha <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://jijo.cjb.net> GPG Fingerprint: 0CCA 8EE2 2EEB 25E2 AB04 06F7 1BB9 E634 9B87 56EE ------------------------------------------------------------------- "355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation!" -- To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the body "unsubscribe ilug-cal" and an empty subject line. FAQ: http://www.ilug-cal.org/node.php?id=3
