We have to learn how to contact one another over an enormous land space, across five-and-a-half time zones, in what as once a wilderness of scattered settlements, in what is now a sprawl of suburban edge cities and satellite towns. Technology forges connections and disconnections here.

B. W. Powe

Categorized in : Cities Land Technology

We remake the world through our technologies, and these in turn remake and extend us, in ever spiraling lattices of complexity. McLuhan uncannily foresaw the future, where electronic technology would shape and expand cultures and societies into a global membrane of communications.

communication technology culture

Each voice carries a portion of value, no matter how unpalatable or distasteful that voice may be: no one person, government, ideology, transnational, or religious institution can own and dominate the whole.

voice government religious

A just society will appear less spectacular, and less clearly defined, than a society with totalitarian leadership, theocratic goals.

spectacular defined goal

Here I find a puzzle of great beauty: Canada works well in practice, but just doesn't work out in theory.

canada work-out practice

If you make things sound inoffensively obvious, then it is likely... by B. W. Powe

If you make things sound inoffensively obvious, then it is likely that no one will listen.

obvious ifs sound

It began in images and it ended in symbolism. by B. W. Powe

It began in images and it ended in symbolism.

symbolism

No rebellious heart is ever at ease with paths established by oth... by B. W. Powe

No rebellious heart is ever at ease with paths established by others.

path ease heart

Alienation and loneliness plant the seeds for rebellion and consc... by B. W. Powe

Alienation and loneliness plant the seeds for rebellion and consciousness.

rebellion consciousness loneliness

The Trojan War without Homer was nothing more than a battle over... by B. W. Powe

The Trojan War without Homer was nothing more than a battle over trade routes.

trojans battle war

Electrical fire and the fire of greed kindle economies. In that flux, nations become digitized commodities on stock-exchange floors and on investors' rating screens. A country becomes a product to be rated for its obedience to paying of deficits and debts.

greed fire country

Enlightenment should be a human right. by B. W. Powe

Enlightenment should be a human right.

enlightenment humans should

The myth of Canada, its hidden story, is of a contemplative country, a place of inwardness, where people can question the idea of nationhood and ponder what values we wish to see expressed and achieved, and what solitudes of identity and reverie we wish to preserve.

country people ideas

Canada may be fast-forwarding, jump starting, into a new pattern, a model of communication linkages, a civilization that is more than a grab for power and dominance, a place that could channel the fires of the global wirings, where political alliances are subject to electrical ebb and flow, and the alchemical cultivations of imagination and perception, of the self, could precail of the ideology of capital.

ebb-and-flow communication self

There is, it seems, an unbridgeable chasm between the concerns of a Sri Aurobindo and a Pat Robertson.

chasms concern seems

Certainty is usually a sign of pathology. by B. W. Powe

Certainty is usually a sign of pathology.

pathology certainty

We become slaves the moment we hand the keys to the definition of reality entirely over to someone else, whether it is a business, an economic theory, a political party, the White House, Newsworld or CNN.

party white reality

Followers of another political party tell us that we will strengthen ourselves by ignoring our history, our traditions, our mythologies, our culture and vision, and by following the American way.

vision political party

Charisma is a sign of the calling. Saints and pilgrims are defian... by B. W. Powe

Charisma is a sign of the calling. Saints and pilgrims are defiantly moved by it.

charisma saint calling

Threaten the balances of justice and you threaten the potential enlargements of mind and soul. Therefore justice is part of the safeguarding of the heart.

soul justice heart

Democracies should be a delirium of choices - more options, not fewer; more avenues to travel, not fewer.

delirium democracy choices