Hart House (Hancock) Lecture 2007 - One Nation Under Google

Citizenship in the Technological Republic: Canadian Research Chair - Darin Barney

Last night I attended the Hart House Lecture, which has now been renamed the Hancock Lecture in honour of Hart House Warden, Margaret Hancock. Peter gave an particularly excellent speech announcing the name change, and to my delight made Margaret cry.. in a good way.. well done Peter.

Darin Barney examined some of the challenges to the practice of citizenship that result from living in a technological society.

It was an interesting lecture that examined a multitude of issues including:
- Concepts of the 'good life' that relate to a redefinition of morals and ethics in relation to technological development;
- that when people say 'technology' most of us automatically think of new technologies (like the internet) although the term also includes things like the telephone and automobile;
- whether technological 'revolutions' are really anything more than marketing spin (how exactly have You Tube and the iPhone changed the world at large?);
- an examination of the value of public consultation to inform the direction of technological development (with an excellent Danish example);
- governments' invested interest in creating technology based industries; and
- some of the possible directions of the future (Nano anyone?)

All very intriguing and relevant.

Unfortunately, my small little mind did wander during the hour or so long lecture and I did loose the thread a little towards the end. The upside of this was that my wandering mind looked around and made some relevant and some off-topic observations.

Firstly, an observation that Peter made, that despite predictions that formats such as the 'Lecture' are dead the Hart House Lecture has sold out every year, so 'bah' to that concept.

Looking around the room (probably not very discreetly) I was pleased to see a great range in ages, ethnicities and genders. This in my mind is one of the advantages of technology, that was only touched-on in the lecture, that technology can be a great equalizer. Of course that doesn't take into account the issue of technology-rich versus technology-poor.

I was also very pleased that Professor Barney, challenged some of the more contentious issues that raised during the Massey Lecture by Margaret Somerville last year. Bravo!

Some totally off-topic observations included:
- That the hall that the Hart House Lecture is held in is very beautiful (Gothic Revival I think, Howard Roark would not approve, but I don't care). It was very pleasing to my eyes, especially watching the shadows being cast on the walls by the wrought-iron chandeliers.
- That the Warden's apartment is fabulous and has great art work.

Definitely a good evening to try to remove some of the sand, which I feel slowly fills my brain sometimes.

A thousand thanks to Jacky for taking me as her date!