Is Google Making Us Stupid?

I don’t suppose it should come as a surprise to anyone that the cover story of Atlantic, vanguard of twentieth century print media, should suggest something so inimical to the newly christened Web 2.0.  I also don’t find it at all surprising that Web 2.0, having been recently christened, is already so blase that even a technophobe like me can have a weblog.

Least surprising of all, though, are the ubiquitous (and damaging) effects of web browsing on thought patterns.  Read the story in Atlantic: a blinding flash of the obvious will stun you senseless.  In short, Nicholas Carr argues that point-and-click reading (the preferred method for Americans now, regardless of age) is rewiring our brains out of any inclination (or ability, even) to focus on a line of plot or reasoning for more than a few minutes.

The Compass, the Knife, and the Spyglass

Two weeks ago, a friend from church lent me his copy of The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman. Enthralled, I read that book plus the two others in the trilogy: The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. Together, the three comprise an epic that Pullman calls His Dark Materials—a phrase borrowed from Milton to describe the raw stuff of matter, energy, and spirit out of which God allegedly created the world and all life.

Readers may recall a recent uproar from Focus on the Family, an evangelical Christian organization whose vehement denunciation of Pullman, his books, and the resultant movie probably sold more books for Pullman than the movie itself did. I, for one, knew nothing of His Dark Materials until I heard of Focus’ new, well, focus. And I am sure I am not the first Christian to read Pullman with great interest after James Dobson’s literature patrol alerted us to the danger that lay within.

With just a brief nod, though, to my brothers and sisters there at Focus on the Family, I intend to argue (over the next few days) that His Dark Materials, in its unhampered critique of Christianity and the Church, actually provides a surprisingly helpful framework for the debate over fundamental philosophical questions—questions that Christians are notoriously clumsy about answering, and that the attackers of Christianity (as a result of our clumsiness) tend to assume they’ve already won.

Put simply: Christians should thank Phillip Pullman for the second chance to get right what we have often gotten wrong.