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02/01/2006 Archived Entry: "And Derrida Says"

And Derrida Says
From "The Word Processor":

With pen and typewriters, you think you know how it works, how "it responds." Whereas with computers, even if people know how to use them up to a point, they rarely know, intuitively and without thinking - at any rate, I don't know - how the internal demon of the apparatus operates. What rules it obeys. This secret with no mystery frequently marks our dependence in relation to many instruments of modern thinking. We know how to use them and what they are for, without knowing what goes on with them, in them, on their side; and this might give us plenty to think about with regard to our relationship with technology today - to the historical newness of this experience.

Listen up, composition pedagogy.