Quotation of the Day
15th February 2015
Italian cultural critic and semiotician Umberto Eco made the connection between the metaphors of religion and technology in a famous essay in which he described “a new underground religious war which is modifying the modern world.” Eco’s tongue-in-cheek metaphor goes like this: The Apple Macintosh computer is Catholic and Microsoft Windows/DOS is Protestant.
Macintosh is Catholic because it is -counter-reformist and has been influenced by the ratio studiorum of the Jesuits. It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory; it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach–if not the kingdom of Heaven–the moment in which their document is printed. It is catechistic: The essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and sumptuous icons. “Everyone has a right to salvation.”
The DOS machine is Protestant because “it allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can achieve salvation. To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself: Far away from the baroque community of revelers, the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment.” His analysis also includes the improvements made by Microsoft to upgrade DOS to Windows. Eco notes, “Windows represents an Anglican-style schism, big ceremonies in the cathedral, tur there is always the possibility of a retum to DOS to change things in accordance with bizarre decisions: When it comes down to it, you can decide to ordain women and gays if you want to.”
— Brett T Robinson, Appletopia: Media Technology and the Religious Imagination of Steve Jobs