SOME TECHNOLOGICAL PARALLELS

1. Technology mirrors such 'mean' and 'shadow' positions as have been outlined above, and one or, rather, two such instances of a technological mirroring can be found in the all-too-prevalent media of televisions and computers, both of which, I shall argue, are of an objective and hence female disposition.

2. Television would seem to be the principal manifestation of a parallel to spatial space, be it with regard to the eyes or, more inorganically, the stars in stellar-plane mode, and to the 'mean' of this eye-based medium must be added the 'shadow', ever subordinate to the prevailing technology, of video recorders and/or players, so that one ends up with a situation in which metachemical sensuality co-exists, as the dominant partner, with chemical sensibility, as though in reflection of eyes over womb or, in inorganic terms, of the stellar plane over the oceanic aspect of planet Earth.

3. Thus it could be said that the relationship of television to video is akin to spatial space to massed mass, which is akin, in metaphorical language, to a 'Liberty Belle' parallel co-existing with a 'Fallen Whore', video-recorders and/or players being open to any number of different video tapes, both pre-recorded and blank.

4. Therefore the relationship of television to video would be of an objective noumenal sensuality standing above an objective phenomenal sensibility as upper-class 'mean' to lower-class 'shadow', the one outer and the other inner.

5. Let us now consider the possibility of the reverse of this double-edged female situation, which would be that of a lower-class 'mean' standing above or, rather, in a more dominant relationship to an upper-class 'shadow', the one phenomenally sensible and the other noumenally sensual, though both alike would be objective.

6. To my mind, the only technological paradigms of such a situation would be of CPUs vis-à-vis VDUs in computers, since the CPU, or central processing unit, is the principal manifestation of the computer, is indeed the computer itself, while the VDU, or visual display unit, is simply the screen upon which all data and videos originating from or via the CPU are shown.

7. Hence the VDU stands in a subordinate relationship to the CPU, which can be regarded as the 'mean' of computers, and such a subordinate position, akin to a situation in which eyes are 'shadow' to the womb or stars to the oceanic aspect of planet Earth, would mean that with computers the spatial space/massed mass partnership is the reverse of what it is with televisions and videos, so that one could infer the hegemony of chemical sensibility over metachemical sensuality.

8. Certainly the CPU is a 'pregnant' entity, to speak in womb-coloured metaphor, not only with regard to the hard disc but also in respect to the sustained use of CDs and/or compact floppies, and I fancy that if we are not dealing here with some technological parallel to the 'Fallen Whore' alluded to above, then we are dealing with one that parallels the 'Blessed Virgin' in what would amount to a sort of 'Marian' manifestation of the womb that could only invite a symbolic analogue, as far as the VDU 'shadow' was concerned, with the 'Risen Virgin'.

9. Thus in complete contrast to the 'Liberty Belle'/'Fallen Whore' parallelism of television and video recorder, corresponding to spatial-space 'mean' and massed-mass 'shadow', one would have for CPUs and VDUs a 'Blessed Virgin'/'Risen Virgin' analogue in which massed mass was 'mean' and spatial space 'shadow', thereby suggesting the overall distinction between televisions and computers to be one of emphasis rather than kind, since both would appear to accord with female objectivity in relation to space and mass.

10. And such objectivity, as we have already discovered, has more to do with eyes and womb than with, say, tongue and heart, even though the latter cannot be wholly excluded. Neither, on the other hand, could a Venusian and lunar parallel, a parallel with the planet Venus and the moon, be completely excluded from what I have argued is basically one between the stellar and oceanic planes where analogies invoking an inorganic alternative to organic supremacy are concerned.

11. Probably inorganic primacy is more applicable than organic supremacy in discussing technology anyway, given the materialistic and realistic correlations that particularly accrue to such media as televisions and computers at the expense, one could argue, of fundamentalism and nonconformism, their organic counterparts.

12. Be that as it may, my understanding of the above media would not have been possible without a prior philosophical knowledge of the relationship between 'means' and 'shadows' on both a gender specific, i.e. objective or subjective, and a class specific, i.e. noumenal or phenomenal, basis, and I flatter myself to think that my own attitude as a male - and a godly male who both meditates and practises philosophy - towards them will be less enthusiastic or supportive than might otherwise have been the case, weary though I have always been of, in particular, television and video.