Let Them Eat Data: How Computers Affect Education, Cultural Diversity, and the Prospects of Ecological Sustainability (Paperback)

by Chet A. Bowers (Author) "The Palacio de Justicia in the Mexican city of Morelia offers its visitors conflicting cultural messages: while the Spanish colonial architecture communicates a sense of..." (more)
Key Phrases: cultural mediating characteristics, mythopoetic narratives, computer proponents, Industrial Revolution, Storybook Weaver, Oregon Trail (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Not so fast, says Bowers, who believes that the media's infatuation with computers has blinded us to their negative effect on world cultures and the environment. An educator and author of The Culture of Denial (1997), Bowers asks readers to tune out the hype and focus on the motivations behind and consequences of the spread of computer technology, which he equates with nineteenth-century colonialism. Computers are a product of the Industrial Revolution's mindset, the belief that defines "humans as the dominant species and Nature as an economic resource." This distorted perspective, coupled with the push to computerize every aspect of life, has led to environmental degradation, cultural homogenization, and economic inequities that are now giving globalization a bad name. To compound the problem, our educational system does little to challenge assumptions that value the marketplace and technology more than communities and ecological well-being. Academic in tone but humanistic in content, Bowers' probing and nuanced critique provides a much-needed catalyst for serious debate about the state of the planet now and in the near future. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description
Do computers foster cultural diversity? Ecological sustainability? In our age of high-tech euphoria we seem content to leave tough questions like these to the experts. That dangerous inclination is at the heart of this important examination of the commercial and educational trends that have left us so uncritically optimistic about global computing.

Contrary to the attitudes that have been marketed and taught to us, says C. A. Bowers, the fact is that computers operate on a set of Western cultural assumptions and a market economy that drives consumption. Our indoctrination includes the view of global computing innovations as inevitable and on a par with social progress--a perspective dismayingly suggestive of the mindset that engendered the vast cultural and ecological disruptions of the industrial revolution and world colonialism.

In Let Them Eat Data Bowers discusses important issues that have fallen into the gap between our perceptions and the realities of global computing, including the misuse of the theory of evolution to justify and legitimate the global spread of computers, and the ecological and cultural implications of unmoving knowledge from its local contexts as it is digitized, commodified, and packaged for global consumption. He also suggests ways that educators can help us think more critically about technology.

Let Them Eat Data is essential reading if we are to begin democratizing technological decisions, conserving true cultural diversity and intergenerational forms of knowledge, and living within the limits and possibilities of the earth's natural systems.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press (October 20, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 082032230X
• ISBN-13: 978-0820322308
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #212,004 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative, insightful, & thought-provoking, January 23, 2001

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

In Let Them Eat Data: How Computers Affect Education, Cultural Diversity, And The Prospects Of Ecological Sustainability, C.A. Bowers discusses the issues that arise from the gap between common perceptions and the realities of global computing. These issues include the misuse use of the theory of evolution to justify and legitimate the global spread of computers. Bowers also covers the ecological and cultural implications of unmooring knowledge from its local contexts as it is digitized, commodified, and packaged for global consumption. Let Them Eat Data is informative, insightful, thought-provoking, and highly recommended reading for those with an interest in how the computer and the Internet are influencing popular culture, education, as well as creation and dissemination of information.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A social analysis of the computer's effects on life, April 27, 2001

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

How do computers affect such diverse social issues as cultural diversity, educational quality and ecological systems? Let Them Eat Data provides a social analysis of the computer's effects on life, considering how computer-enforced cultural patterns contribute to global ecological problems. A unique, involving probe of some unusual effects of the new computer world.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Extreme, but very interesting and certainly worth reading, September 18, 2005

By	Joseph C. Stack - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I personally do not agree with a lot that Bowers has to say in this book, but it is worth reading to get the "other sides" point of view. If you can wade through all the apocalyptic rantings, he has some very interesting commentary on how computers and science has affected our culture. I only really liked reading chapters 2-4 (out of 6 total I think), but they were certainly worth it. Pick this book up if you have a chance, at the very least it will stimulate you to rethink your own arguement for or against technology.