Home

Content about The Open Column

September 12, 2011
THE OPEN COLUMN: Learning to read ... again

When I was young, life was simple. Or should I say, reading was simple. Am I getting old? Certainly, but looking at the pace things have changed over the last two decades, this statement is true even for my students. What I mean is, that after seamlessly accepting all the technological advances supporting consumption of the digital content, we are starting to have problems with reading. I believe it is not even clear what we mean by reading anymore. Let me explain why.

When I was young, life was simple. Or should I say, reading was simple. Am I getting old? Certainly, but looking at the pace things have changed over the last two decades, this statement is true even for my students. What I mean is, that after seamlessly accepting all the technological advances supporting consumption of the digital content, we are starting to have problems with reading. I believe it is not even clear what we mean by reading anymore. Let me explain why.

April 18, 2011
THE OPEN COLUMN: Technology, Society, Culture

On many occasions in the past I have felt uncomfortable with the claim that we live in the era of knowledge, rationality, technology and primacy of empiricism. The source of this unease felt like a dissonance in some deeper insides of me. Postmodern philosophers prophet the decline of religion and the rise of rationality, professionalization, constant self-actualization, expert-dependence, pragmatism, dominance of market-like relationships (panmarket), cynicism and egoism, resembling a dehumanized world of characters from Philip K. Dick’s novels. One who claims we are leaving in romantic times would be considered out of mind, no doubt. Meanwhile if you type 'rational' in Google search you will get some 50 mio hits, when you write romantic you get some 200 mio hits. Of course it does not prove anything but you may find this fact curious, curious enough to consider some other clues that inspired my thoughts before it even occurred to me to make this awkward comparison. I encourage you to expand the list by posting comments below.

On many occasions in the past I have felt uncomfortable with the claim that we live in the era of knowledge, rationality, technology and primacy of empiricism. The source of this unease felt like a dissonance in some deeper insides of me. Postmodern philosophers prophet the decline of religion and the rise of rationality, professionalization, constant self-actualization, expert-dependence, pragmatism, dominance of market-like relationships (panmarket), cynicism and egoism, resembling a dehumanized world of characters from Philip K. Dick’s novels.

October 29, 2010
Innova-Sutra

Don’t you think that a persistent part of today’s social communication patterns is that we are aggressively attacked by buzzwords that are infinitely generated and disseminated with the intent to attract our attention? Contemporary Alladins of public relations keep using them as incantations to open the sesames’ of our minds. I’m sure you do!

Don’t you think that a persistent part of today’s social communication patterns is that we are aggressively attacked by buzzwords that are infinitely generated and disseminated with the intent to attract our attention? Contemporary Alladins of public relations keep using them as incantations to open the sesames’ of our minds. I’m sure you do!

September 24, 2010
THE OPEN COLUMN: Technology, Society, Culture

From this ICaST issue on the magazine will feature a column on topics that bridge technology, society and culture. The editors and co-authors of this column, Mieczysław Muraszkiewicz and Jan Kaczmarek, will share it with other invited authors to trace and discuss two-way impacts between technology, society and culture at large. In their first introductory article the authors set the background for the column’s main main theme.