Thresholds of Artificiality
Welcome to the Convivial Society, a newsletter about technology and culture, broadly speaking. This post began as part of a recent feature I’ve titled “Is this anything?”: one idea for your consideration in less than 500 words. It spilled over 500 words, however, so just consider it a relatively brief dispatch. My writing is an exercise in thinking out loud, so I’m never quite sure where it will lead. Of course, I do hope my thinking out loud is helpful to more than just myself. Finally, the newsletter is public by design, but the support of those who are able to give it is encouraged and appreciated.
In ordinary conversation, I’d say that the word artificial tends to be used pejoratively. To call something artificial is usually to suggest its inferiority to some ostensibly natural alternative. For example, the boast “No artificial sweeteners!” come to mind. And when applied to people, the word suggests a lack of authenticity or sincerity. But if we recall the word’s semantic relation to artifice or art, then we might come to see artificiality in a different light. In one sense, artificiality is just another way of speaking about what historian Thomas Hughes simply called the “human-built world.”
So, for example, in Orality and Literacy Walter Ong wrote, “To say writing is artificial is not to condemn it but to praise it.” A bit further on he added, “Technologies are artificial, but – paradox again – artificiality is natural to human beings. Technology, properly interiorized, does not degrade human life but on the contrary enhances it.”
