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to New Media Communications Home Page The "techno-utopians" make up the largest segment of the types of approaches to technology which Mark Dery covers in his book: "Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the 20th Century". They are generally (my generalization) classified as those whose response to technology is to see it as some means to achieve a better world and/or a better, higher quality human life or society. (In some cases it is "better life" in the sense of an individulistic ideal, and to others, a more "collaborative" betterment. ) Some see the highest good in the visions of computer replacement for formerly "fleshy, human frailites", and others see computers like a drug which helps in the "task" of escape, much like the psychodelic drug culture of the 60's.
Dery 's book is truly eerie in parts, as he insighfully describes in detail the subcultures which have adopted computer technology (or research into possible computer technologies) , and lets the leaders or outspoken ones of these movements speak. Dery has done a marvelous job of letting us see into these subcultures, and poses several sociological insights which I deem to have been very helpful in helping me to understand more of the breadth of the "computer hope" and also of the "despair" and/or "disorientation" of those in these subcultures.
Teilhard seems to have based his notion of "noosphere" deeply in the material world (he was an anthropologist, after all). His notion of the "noosphere" repeatedly includes images of groundedness in physicality; our bodies, the earth, and the the "Web" of social relationships which he also considers to be a part of the inner life; a part of consciousness closely akin to the collective unconscious of Jungian psychology. In Teihard's notion of this collectivity, there is very little to suggest a dualistic notion of body/mind dichotomy. That's becuase, I think, he was very intentional to avoid this. The element in the conscious mind which he identified as the "spark" of divine life; the "receptor" for the "Omega" influence which calls humanity forward, is wrapped up in the physical life , and also in the sociological.
The "Omega" is practically synonomous with the sense of definition I have for "spiritual". I consider the human to be a whol unit of physicality, "Omega", and "noosphere". In these three, we have the elements of body, soul, and "fellowship" or community. My notion of community is closely akin to "koinonia" , which is the word I (and many others) have translated fellowship.
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