In a recent email, my friend Dougald Hine wrote, “[T]he internet has the power to save us [i.e., us life of the minders living outside the academy] from turning into cranks! What I mean by this is that, until very recently, it was hard to pursue an unconventional career* [see footnote below] as a thinker without being incredibly isolated.” The thought is tantalizing; it’s been coming back to me, almost daily, since Dougald and I last spoke.

I’m generally something of a techno-skeptic. Heidegger once intoned stupidly, “Only a god can save us.” Looking at peak oil and climate change, technophiles now proclaim, “Only innovation can save us.” I remain skeptical of god-waiting and techno-escapism.

I remain something of a traditionalist. I value the face-to-face, the coffee meetings and cocktails and late night dinners; with Nicholas Carr, I still think the book is one of man’s marvelous, to date unsurpassable achievements; I believe the solitary life is vital and contemplation indispensable; and I don’t think the revolution will be tweeted. To date, I remain unconvinced that Web 2.0 or modern society actually cultivates the moral and intellectual virtues that enrich our souls and make us into intelligent persons. Instead, alienation and nihilism seem natural byproducts of modern life.

To me, ideas still matter, ideas being the products of taking time, of the stroll, the musing, the aside, the puzzle.

And yet… And yet…

Since I set this website up in mid-January of 2011, I’ve been forced to confront a number of stark counterexamples to my traditionalism: new friendships have been made possible by new technologies–wonderful, intellectually rich, engrossingly eclectic friendships that would not have been conceivable before the invention of the modern infrastructure we call the internet. These forms of association are remarkable in their tones, their shadings, their textures, their overall character. I’m left wondering, therefore: Is the internet, at its intellectual best, facilitating new kinds of friendship as of yet unnamable, or is it making possible traditional forms of friendship (pen pals, epistolary novels, etc.)? Is it a craftsman or an intermediary?

This, not surprisingly perhaps for those who’ve been following this blog, is one of the questions we’ll be examining tonight at Cafe Philo.

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*My only quibble with Dougald’s claim: I think the concept of the career–i.e., career qua organizing category–is, or will soon be, senseless. I write about this in my forthcoming Inside Higher Ed columns.