5th
a device is not neutral
If we take the case of writing implements, we can more clearly see both the positive role that can be played by technological things as well as the special danger they present to which Borgmann has made us sensitive. Like bridges the style of writing implements reflects their place in the history of being. The fountain pen solicits us to write to someone for whom the personality of our handwriting will make a difference. When involved in the practices that make the fountain pen seem important, we care about such matters as life plans, stable identities, character, views of the world, and so on. We are subjects dealing with other subjects. A typewriter, however, will serve us better if we are recording business matters or writing factual reports simply to convey information. A word processor hooked up to the Net with its great flexibility solicits us to select from a huge number of options in order to produce technical or scholarly papers that enter a network of conversations. And using a word processor one cannot help but feel lucky that one does not have to worry about erasing, retyping, literally cutting and pasting to move text around, and mailing the final product.
But, as Borgmann points out, a device is not neutral; it affects the possibilities that show up for us. If one has a word processor and a modem, the text no longer appears to be a piece of work that one finishes and then publishes. It evolves through many drafts none of which is final. Circulating texts on the net is the culmination of the dissolution of the finished object, where different versions (of what would have before been called a single text), are contributed to by many people. With such multiple contributions, not only is the physical work dispersed but so is the author. Such authorial dispersion is a part of the general dispersion of identity that Sherry Turkle describes.
