iPod and Philosophy

My initial thoughts while reading selections from iPod And Philosophy; iCon of an ePoch edited by D. E. Wittkower ran every possible direction. An organized study on lifestyle, thought process, belonging, racism, community, identity, change and motivation all centered around a consumable intangible mass produced object.

But many of the readings were well done; they affirmed the viability of the product to give value, meaning and identity to life – at least as a method of archiving, expressing or analyzing those emotionally laden terms.

The title of the introduction caught my fancy much better than the title of the book did. “What do we hear when we listen to our iPods” subtly speaks past the obvious; what we hear and discern is much more than the audible relaying of digital tracks saved to another electronic medium. I had not considered an iPod as a method of creating, building or defining a relationship in any plausible way so the discussion of how an iProduct can condition its owner (caregiver, human partner, imprinter, or other term may end up applying by the time I finish the reading based upon first two articles) in a manner that both limits exposure and enables common ground was intriguing.

Page xiii was the analogy with Odysseus and the question:

Which are we? Are we Odysseus, who hears the voice of the other, distant, disconnected from action, unable to go meet them, but aware of the compulsion to do so? Or do we silence the other, in order that we are able to move forward, to act, and to participate in our day-to-day re-creation of our society through our mere consumption?

Wittkower then offers insight into his response, and assumes the reader automatically agrees when he states, “How can we bridge the gap? How can we become Odysseus unbound?

My reaction to that was an emphatic ‘Why would we want to become Odysseus unbound?’ Those who heard the Sirens and were allowed to act went raving mad. Their sound created a self-destructive obsessive and illogical pattern of behavior that would not be desirable in the least!