A reading list for the summer
Unexamined Technology will return in September
Dear all,
I have decided to take a break from publishing for July and August, to read and research for new posts. My thoughts will return to your inbox at the beginning of September, hopefully re-energised and covering new topics and perspectives.
I have two parting gifts: 1) a discount for the paid tier, which will include audio posts after the summer break, and 2) the following list of recommended reading. I was requested a reading list, so this is just a short interim offering while I compile a more comprehensive one. For full disclosure, purchasing any of the books via my bookshop.org affiliate shop is another way to support my writing — thank you!
Summer offer - LINK
Bookshop - LINK
OK, on to the list. It is rather random in that I have picked books both from my pile for the summer and ones that I have referenced in the posts in the past. I have categorised the list a bit according to themes. There are also books that I am in the process of reading. I have a bad (?) habit of having multiple (non-fiction) books in flight simultaneously…anyhow, here we go:
Society and economy
John Michael Greer: The Wealth of Nature: Economics as if Survival Mattered
I referenced Greer’s book in my recent post about energy and the creative industries. For someone like me who has never been interested in economics as such, it has been a great summary and a dive into the shortcomings of prevalent economical models. Instead, Greer proposes ”economics as if survival mattered” as the subtitle states, as a nod to E.F Schumacher’s 1970s classic Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered. The book is a good companion to books about alternative models, such as degrowth or doughnut economics, for example.
Hartmut Rosa: Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World.
Rosa’s concepts have popped up in the various online discussions I follow; therefore I have included a book of his from my own ‘ to read’ list. The talk linked below gives an idea about his notion of ‘social energy’ which resonates (ha) with the notion of creative energy I addressed in a recent post.
Technology and design
I have mixed feelings about this book — it has a lot going for it in terms of championing alternative perspectives to how we in the north tend to view the technology adoption and consumption by those in the Global South. The author is an academic with an impressive track record in leading research and innovation projects in the Southern Hemisphere. However, after reading Hospicing Modernity, many of the author’s rallying cries appear to be soft-reform approaches. Yes, it is empowering for youths in India to create their own social media following around important topics, but the trappings of the attention economy and the big tech that runs it are left undiscussed. The ends (social media presence) seem to justify the means (using Instagram, etc), and admittedly, the existing platforms might the only way to get any visibility. Is that enough? In any case, it felt to me that the broader hegemony of modernity/coloniality was tackled very unevenly. As a result, many of the projects discussed in the book appear to be practicing inclusion in the ‘plus one crowd lets the minus one crowd join the table’ manner that creates a power asymmetry difficult to overcome, despite good intentions — as Vanessa Machado de Oliveira has elaborated. Overall, I find the book frustrating and at times baffling in that respect, but it is still worth reading if you are interested in inclusive design approaches to technology. I can only voice this criticism because of the initiatives that tried to do something about things.
The Design Council: Skills for Planet Blueprint. The critical green skills that all designers need
The Design Council aspires to empower designers for a “green transition”. The idea is that a ‘green’ approach to design becomes interwoven into all good design practices, thus becoming a redundant prefix over time (by 2050, according to the council’s vision). Nowadays, I approach these kinds of initiatives with slight trepidation — contemplating to myself whether they are merely soft-reform approaches to keeping the existing economic system, or do they dare to go beyond that. To please the powers that be, this one feels the need to bring up the threat of a future economic downturn as a negative thing, unless green design is embraced. Myself, I believe that a green design paradigm can only be attained by decoupling economic growth from the equation — and in that case, the feared downturn would happen anyway, not least because of energy shortages.
Nevertheless, the council’s desire to up-skill designers into systemic and planet-centred thinking will not hurt and might alleviate the grim scenarios. The six green design elements proposed, ranging from empowering communities to increased circularity and regeneration, are all valid and direly needed, with useful references for further reading.
But as with the various responsible innovation initiatives and frameworks, the risk is that while the skills are embraced by the practitioners on the ground, their intentions can remain relatively powerless if they are vetoed by top-down economical and political incentives that they have no power over. The case studies of products, services, and processes in the document do give examples of how such concerns can and are being mitigated, and I found them inspiring. It helps that the blueprint is a pleasant document to read with accessible visualisations about complex issues (you’d expect that from a design council, tbh).
Philosophy of Technology
Jacques Ellul: The technological society
To my detriment, I do not read French nor German and therefore with a host of seminal books in philosophy of technology (by Gilbert Simondon, Hans Jonas, etc.) I have to resort to translations that can be difficult to find or prohibitively expensive. I finally managed to get this 1964 classic from eBay, and it is on the top of my list for the summer. Expect a post centred around Ellul’s classic.
I have written about this fantastic book and Vallor also has a new book out on AI which I am eagerly awaiting to read. With research out there already showing evidence of how using generative AI tools can impoverish thinking, I have no doubt that Vallor provides an insightful perspective to the current AI determinism:
Spirituality and thereabouts
Simon Critchley: On Mysticism: The Experience of Ecstasy
My partner got me this for my birthday, and I was overjoyed. The paperback is about to come out. Critchley writes, following the 19th century Christian mystic Evelyn Underhill, about the history of “experience in its most intense form”. Mystical experiences are often associated with a subsequent personal transformation that also invites others to its periphery, as devotees, and Critchley explores this through perspectives provided by theologians and psychologists who had an interest religion and its mystical manifestations, such as William James. The book gives a fascinating account of the visionary and contemplative religious traditions through the lives of several mystics, including Julian of Norwich and Meister Eckhart. Critchley describes mysticism as a “set of practices constituting a lived tradition” that through negation and something the author calls decreation, one gives oneself away, one forgets one’s self, and through such “cloud of forgetting” sees “the cloud of unknowing that separates us from God” and is released into “the flowing openness of an existence detached from the will”. For the skeptical, mysticism makes no sense because it is living through contradiction, but “we become mystics every time we fall asleep”, Critchley concludes.
Bill Plotkin: The Journey of Soul Initiation: A Field Guide for Visionaries, Revolutionaries, and Evolutionaries
This one is on my shelf, unread, but one of my summer projects — I have listened to a few of Plotkin’s talks and dabbled in his other writing in audiobook format, and find his thinking inspiring. One of the themes in his work is a developmental view to our behaviour amidst the current predicaments. Plotkin argues that Western culture conditions most of us in ways that we never reach past adolescence in our worldviews or relationships to other people and nature. Soul initiation is about reconditioning oneself out of that hole. I expect this to yield indirectly some parenting insight, too.
Paul Kingsnorth: Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity
Finally, the most awaited book of the year for me is
’s opus that comes out in September. “A spiritual manual for dissidents in the technological age”, says the marketing, and I expect nothing less. Pre-order via the link.Bookshop - LINK
Summer offer - LINK
That’s it for now — thank you for reading and your support. Take care, until September!
With love and kindness,
Aki