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06486_Field_TCUM T51.txt
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1996-04-10
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system of values, as it does our physical nervous system by
simply cooling off the onset of experience a great deal. For
many people, this cooling system brings on a lifelong state of
psychic rigor mortis , or of somnambulism, particularly
observable in periods of new technology.
An example of the disruptive impact of a hot technology
succeeding a cool one is given by Robert Theobald in The Rich
and the Poor . When Australian natives were given steel axes by
the missionaries, their culture, based on the stone axe,
collapsed. The stone axe had not only been scarce but had
always been a basic status symbol of male importance. The
missionaries provided quantities of sharp steel axes and gave
them to women and children. The men had even to borrow
these from the women, causing a collapse of male dignity. A
tribal and feudal hierarchy of traditional kind collapses quickly