Reinventing the wheel : a Buddhist response to the information age / Peter D. Hershock. [electronic resource]

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hershock, Peter D.

Series:

SUNY series in philosophy and biology

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Information technology--Religious aspects--Buddhism.

Information technology.

Buddhism--Social aspects.

Buddhism.

Buddhism--Doctrines.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvii, 309 p. )

Place of Publication:

Albany, N.Y. : State University of New York Press, 1999.

Summary:

"By uniquely using Buddhist teachings, Reinventing the Wheel assesses the personal and communal costs of our global economic and technological commitments. Hershock urges reinvention of the technological "wheel," and, at the same time acknowledges the need for new forms of practice suited to our rapidly evolving social, political, and economic circumstances. His persuasive presentation urges the skillful spinning of a new "wheel of the dharma.""--Jacket.

Contents:

Part 1: The axis of factual success: from controlling circumstances to colonizing consciousness

Chapter 1: Technology and the biasing of conduct: Establishing the grammar of our narrative

Chapter 2: The canons of freedom and moral transparency: In technology and the media we trust

Chapter 3: Technology as Savior: It's getting better, better all the time

Chapter 4: The direction of technical evolution: A different kind of Caveat

Chapter 5: The new colonialism: from an ignoble past to an invisible future

Chapter 6: Pluralism versus the commodification of values

Part 2: Practicing the unprecedented: a Buddhist intermission

Chapter 7: Appreciative virtuosity: the Buddhist alternative to control and independence

Part 3: The wheel of dramatic impoverishment: the crisis of community in the information age

Chapter 8: Concentrating power: are technologies of control ever truly Democratic?

Chapter 9: Narcissism and Nihilism: the atrophy of dramatic attention and the end of authentic materialism

Chapter 10: The new meaning of biography: the efficient self in calculated crisis

Chapter 11: The digital age and the defeat of chaos: attentive modality, the media, and the loss of narrative wilderness.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-4384-0660-6

0-585-31677-5