Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site unc.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!mcnc!unc!goodrum From: goodrum@unc.UUCP (Cloyd Goodrum) Newsgroups: net.books Subject: Re: Technology, Literature, Scientists, and Engineers Message-ID: <270@unc.UUCP> Date: Tue, 21-May-85 23:51:25 EDT Article-I.D.: unc.270 Posted: Tue May 21 23:51:25 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 24-May-85 08:08:16 EDT References: Reply-To: goodrum@unc.UUCP (Cloyd Goodrum) Distribution: net Organization: CS Dept., U. of N. Carolina at Chapel Hill Lines: 32 In article susie@uwmacc.UUCP (sue brunkow) writes: > > > Now, I have a question for everybody: > If you were designing a course, for technological people, >covering different views of technology and its impact >on society; which books, stories, or music >etc would you include? > > > Sue Brunkow > University of Wisconsin > {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!susie I would definitely include "Love In The Ruins", Walker Percy's only science fiction novel. It deals with an alcholic, suicidal psychiatrist who is living in a time when mankind has gone even more bananas than it is now. He knows that something is gravely wrong with people, and develops a device called an "ontological lapsometer" which he intends to use cure basic human failings. Walker Percy is a Roman Catholic who briefly studied psychiatry in Medical school, and all of his novels explore the tension between the Freudian scientific view of the human condition, and the spiritual,more traditional Catholic view. LITR is a surprisingly amusing treatment of this subject. Two other excellent novels that explore technological solutions to human problems amenable to technological solutions are "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess and "That Hideous Strength" by C.S. Lewis. Cloyd Goodrum III not really solv