The electronic future—impact on work and society

We have slipped into a new society without quite noticing it, as a result of the electronic revolution, and we are still bumbling along in the old ways while a third revolution, the information revolution, is overtaking us. It is my function this morning to try to put a broader philosophical perspective on things, and for that reason I begin with an anecdote—with apologies to those of you who may have heard it before. You will know of the philosopher in education who had established an international reputation on the theory that children will not learn if they are not supported properly psychologically. And he achieved a reputation far and wide for this view. One Saturday afternoon he persuaded a couple of students into helping him lay a fresh drive at home, and they had worked hard and arduously at this task for several hours and completed it. They stood admiring its nice smooth surface when two neighbourhood children playing tag, in the heat of the chase, ran right through this. Our professor looked at the children's footprints and blanched and then became apoplectic. He began shouting and screaming at the children, yelling terrible things—obscene things. The students were aghast and said ‘but Professor Smith, we thought you liked children!’ He replied:—‘Yes, yes, well I love them in the abstract but I hate them in the concrete.’