CMP Review 2024-01-11

January 11, 2024

In 1936, Mary Hardcastle, then Secretary of the House of Education, wrote these captivating words: “Each moment has its outward visible sign and inward spiritual grace.”

She referred to it as “the sacrament of the present moment.” But she also gave a warning: “It is only as we have eyes to see, ears to hear and minds turned away from self, that we are able to receive and use what that moment has to give.”

Eight decades later, Catherine Price wrote of a new device that turns our eyes away from the present moment: “if you wanted to invent a device that could rewire our minds, if you wanted to create a society of people who were perpetually distracted, isolated, and overtired, if you wanted to weaken our memories and damage our capacity for focus and deep thought, if you wanted to reduce empathy, encourage self-absorption, and redraw the lines of social etiquette, you’d likely end up with a smartphone.”

Felicia Wu Song describes the ecology formed by this device: “When we are at work, watching our kids, having a meal, or sitting through a meeting, our regular interface with the digital ecology has trained us to feel as if something else is always happening, something potentially more important. And so many of us feel the itch to peek and know. The result is that whatever is taking place around us, whatever proximate reality we find ourselves in, it begins to feel less interesting, more stifling, and more like something we want to be released from or bypass altogether.”

Does the present moment carry for me an inward spiritual grace? Or is it keeping me from something better and more important that is happening somewhere else? The answer may largely depend on what device is in my hand.

No doubt my smartphone is a powerful and useful tool. But if the present moment is a sacrament, then my phone is a sacrament-killer. When an outward and visible sign is near, with its inward and spiritual grace, I want my device as far from me as possible.

@artmiddlekauff

📷 @aolander