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But what does it mean for something one produced or
aligned oneself with to be external, to be not of one's body? Does that mean that thing is
not a part of someone? It seems almost human nature (or at least American) lately to make
a space for oneself in the world and gain as many possessions as possible, and all those
possessions added up are what someone is worth. This view is that all of someone's
objects, most likely not something they would consider a part of them, are being seen as
just that. One becomes what she reaches into the world for and
claims. Therefore, as a people, we do not make the world a part of ourselves by
dispersing ourselves into the world and bringing everything into ourselves, but instead by
infusing ourselves into the world. "[L]anguage itself is surely a technology insofar as it is a tool made by people; our tools and technologies are not dumb and lifeless externalities that we pick up at need to do a job; instead, they often are truly extensions of ourselves: extensions of our minds and feelings and imaginations (language); extensions of our eyes (electron and radio telescopes); extensions of our memory (books); extensions of our voices (telephones); etc. Poets are familiar with the odd feeling of seeing their poems in type, particularly in something as apparently external as a book or magazine; it's as though a part of themselves had somehow been transferred by machines to the external and other. There they are, our silent running soul devices." (Andrews, Jim. "Infoanimism," http://www.vispo.com/animisms/enigman/EnigmanInfoanimism.html [Accessed 4 November 1999].) |
