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Ornamental or Instrumental? |
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05/01/11 - by Chuck Monan, Preaching Minister
Skeuomorph ` a derivative object that retains ornamental design cues to a structure that was necessary in the original (from Greek skeuos ~ vessel or tool and morphe ~ shape)
~ Wikipedia
As a lifelong bibliophile I was initially disdainful and suspicious of the introduction of electronic readers. Books are meant to be held, their pages turned, and stacked around us on shelves like old and new friends. How could some goofy high-tech gadget compete with that?
Well ... it turns out that books on the Amazon Kindle are cheaper, downloadable in less than 60 seconds, and the device can hold up to 3,500 books and documents. It is the size of a paperback and weighs 8.5 ounces. Hmm .... After getting a Kindle for Christmas, I have been buying and reading books even more voraciously than before. Given the impact e-readers are having on the publishing world, apparently so are a lot of others.
When you read a book on the Kindle, you chart your march through it with “location numbers” instead of the old standby of page numbers. Evidently this change was unsettling enough to some folks that their voices have convinced Amazon to add page numbers that correspond to physical books.
Never mind that e-books, by definition, do not have pages. People find such superfluous references to the past comforting: digital cameras featuring an artificial shutter snapping when taking a photograph ... automobile hubcaps with spokes leftover from carriage wheel construction ... a lever arm on the side of a digital slot machine ... blue jeans with pockets that are a throwback to a time when watches dangled from chains.
You get the picture.
Skeuomorphs are a ubiquitous presence in today’s world. Most of us scarcely notice them. While some are a bit silly, most are rather harmless. Nearly always they are deliberately employed to make the new look comfortably old and familiar.
Some voices today are calling marriage and monogamy skeuomorphs: relics from the past that have outlived their usefulness, no longer instrumental to human progress.
Anthropologist Helen Fisher calls monogamy a “symptom of our biology” and claims humans aren’t meant to be together for life, but in short-term, monogamous relationships of three or four years. With one in five U.S. marriages dissolving within five years, and 41% of American births occurring outside of marriage in 2008, it appears that quite a few people agree with Fisher.
It is worth remembering, however, that God doesn’t (Matt. 19:1-12).
(Chuck’s 2011 sermon series “Building Christian Families” can be read/heard/downloaded free at http://www.pvcc.org/Sermons-Online.html .)
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