+ Page 63 + ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ####### ######## ######## ########### ### ### ## ### ## # ### # Interpersonal Computing and ### ### ## ### ## ### Technology: ### ### ## ### ### An Electronic Journal for ### ######## ### ### the 21st Century ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ## ### ISSN: 1064-4326 ### ### ### ## ### April, 1997 ####### ### ######## ### Volume 5, Number 1-2, pp. 63-65 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published by the Association for Educational Communications and Technology Additional support provided by Georgetown University University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Northern Arizona University This article is archived as LIPPERT IPCTV5N2 on LISTSERV@LISTSERV.GEORGETOWN.EDU ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- A BOOK REVIEW OF HENRY J. PERKINSON'S NO SAFETY IN NUMBERS: HOW THE COMPUTER QUANTIFIED EVERYTHING AND MADE PEOPLE RISK-AVERSIVE by Paul J. Lippert Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton Press, 1996 pages 192 ISBN 157273-062-5 (cloth) ISBN 1-57273-063-3 (pbk.) Hampton Press introduces its Media Ecology Series with this ground-breaking new study of the cultural impact of the computer. The media ecology perspective is based on the theory and criticism of scholars such as Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong and Neil Postman. It is a perspective that is concerned with the social, cultural, psychological, and educational impact of media and technology. This is the first of four books planned by Series Editor Lance Strate. It begins the task of establishing a body of communication studies literature that consistently presents the outlook of this significant school of thought within the discipline of media theory. And this it does quite dramatically with a challenging new theory. In his earlier works about the relations between media and culture, Getting Better: Television and Moral Progress (1991) and How Things Got Better: Speech, Writing, Printing, and Cultural Change (1995), Henry Perkinson has maintained a rather consistent view of the impact of new media: By putting our knowledge into more objective form, new media make it easier to criticize, therefore encouraging improvement. Committing the mythological beliefs of an oral culture to writing, for example, subjects these beliefs to greater human control and analysis. Intriguingly, he comes to quite different conclusions about the computer. + Page 64 + By making us more aware than ever of a wide range of statistical probabilities governing threats to human well-being, he argues, the computer has led us as a society to become increasingly risk aversive. This is a remarkably simple, elegant theory. But as with his earlier works, which historically demonstrate his theory through a focused narrative of the progress of civilization, the genius of this work is in its details. Separate chapters apply this risk-aversion theory to such diverse fields of human endeavor as electoral politics; finance and industry; civil rights; health, safety, and environmental regulation; and even scholarship in the humanities. These function as self-sufficient essays which provide provocative insights into issues in each area which have relevance well beyond the scope of the book's central thesis. Of greatest interest to the communication, social science or education scholar is Perkinson's discussion of the cultural phenomenon of the quantification of knowledge in literary studies, history, and anthropology and the influence of this phenomenon on the rise of postmodern approaches to these disciplines. This section of the book contains what has to be the clearest, most concise explanation of the philosophical roots of postmodernism ever achieved as of this writing. And significantly, he describes how it developed as an extreme reaction to the earlier doctrine of logical positivism, both through an account of the intellectual career of Ludwig Wittgenstein and through arguments about how it provided safe, easy answers to epistemological problems that have plagued philosophers from the time of George Berkeley and David Hume. Most contentious to some will be his assertions about the corrosive effects these answers have had on rational criticism, intellectual progress, and morality. And yet, read in parts or as a whole No Safety in Numbers provides fascinating illustrations of contemporary society's persistent aversion to risk, all the while relating this aversion to the computer's technological bias toward quantifying everything. It is as valuable as cultural and intellectual history as it is as media theory. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES: Paul J. Lippert is an Associate Professor of Speech Communication at East Stroudsburg University. His research interests include cinema studies, orality-literary theory, and media epistemology. He is a contributor to Communication and Cyberspace: Social Interaction in an Electronic Environment, edited by Lance Strate, Ronald Jacobson, and Stephanie Gibson. plippert@esu.edu + Page 65 + ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright Statement Interpersonal Computing and Technology: An Electronic Journal for the 21st Century Copyright 1997 University of Maryland Baltimore County and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. Copyright of individual articles in this publication is retained by the individual authors. Copyright of the compilation as a whole is held by the UMBC and AECT. It is asked that any republication of this article state that the article was first published in IPCT-J. Contributions to IPCT-J can be submitted by electronic mail in APA style to: Susan Barnes, Editor IPCT-J SBBARNES@PIPLELINE.COM or BARNES@MURRAY.FORDHAM.EDU