IN 1964 Leo Marx authored an oft-referenced tour de force called The Machine in the Garden. In it, Marx described the way the machine had descended upon lush, pastoral America and gobbled it up. It’s the Thoreau idea that “Men have become tools of their tools”--that in our rush to industrialize we have trashed our garden.
You may have a more informed opinion on this subject after Memorial Day weekend, especially if you have the shakes being away from your computer, or bring your iPhone (the ultimate machine) literally down to your garden as you plant and weed, for fear of missing a call or message.
Personally, I cannot say if the machine is in the garden or not, but I do know that numbers, data, and information have entered our gardens in a big, and not always very pleasant, way.
Here's what I mean. Suppose you like to ride a bike. If that were the case in 1900 or 1950 or even 1970, you would buy a bike and ride it for fun in your free time. Easy.
Today, if you buy a bike, you probably need to make a decision between a mountain, road or some other species. Then you’ll need the clothes, and of course, the shoes. Then you’ll probably remember that getting 30 minutes of exercise three times a week is a good idea, and getting 45 minutes of exercise five or six times a week is even better. So, you think, why not keep a journal and just track your, ah, workouts, um, time on the bike? Oh, and buy a Timex Ironman watch. That’ll make things easier.
You see the slippery slope, right?
Because next someone nice gives you a GPS for your birthday and you strap it on the bike, download it to the computer, and suddenly realize that over the last 16 rides your miles-per-hour is actually declining. So, why not move the journal to a spreadsheet, and start setting some goals around improving your speed and distance? Maybe do a graph. Maybe find a special "biking software" to purchase.
Now you’re really riding a bike! If you get sick, of course, and are out of commission for a few days, you get to introduce the notion of stress into your bike-riding, because now you can worry about missed workouts and declining fitness--and holes in your graph.
That’s what I mean about “numbers in the garden.” We informationalize ourselves into all kinds of unpleasant, unwanted work and stress. We take the fun out of gardening. Not that we don’t love information, especially when it improves our production processes or makes our sales efforts more efficient or makes us all richer. But we just can’t leave well enough alone, and insist on hauling all those numbers into our free space, our gardens. Park them right over there next to our machines.
Here’s another example. You’re on-line looking at an article and discover that there is a list of most popular articles, or most popular websites, or hotels, or movies. Carl Bialik, the Numbers Guy in the Wall Street Journal, just did a great article on this phenomenon. He notes that popularity rankings on-line create a positive-feedback loop, so that something that just gets a random burst of interest can suddenly become the most popular item on a list.
Bialik reminds us, if enough people stop and stare into the sky, they will attract a crowd of people staring into the sky. Even if there is nothing there to stare at.
He also notes that telling someone that, say, a particular song is popular will encourage that person to like the song and swell its popularity. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat as necessary.
So, by relying on web-driven popularity to make decisions—another case of numbers in the garden—we end up mistaking popularity for quality. That is a big, big mistake, not so much if we are voting on our favorite American Idol singer, but moreso if we are assessing a restaurant for tonight’s dinner--or maybe a presidential candidate.
If you think you might have numbers in your garden, one of the must-read books is John Allen Paulos’ Innumeracy, a discourse on “the stunning innumeracy of so many people (including those in high places).” We are a nation that quantifies everything, that is driven by numbers, but is then unwilling or incapable of taking the time to understand them.
So, I ask: I have two lottery tickets, 2 13 17 20 29 36 and 1 2 3 4 5 6. Which would you like? The first one, of course, because the chances of hitting 2 13 17 20 29 36 are at least reasonable, while the chances of 1 2 3 4 5 6 coming up are just plain ridiculous. (If you agree, please buy the book. Now.)
It reminds me of the old Microsoft or Google interview question: “How fast does your hair grow in miles-per-hour?” One person was insistent that his hair did not grow in miles-per-hour. Today, that person may be on the wrong end of a fast food intercom system.
So, not only do we let numbers into the garden, we get taken to the cleaners by them.
If you read Harper’s you know about their dreaded (and very popular) “Index,” in which we discover each issue that we apparently measure everything on the planet. In the most recent Harper’s, for instance, we learn things that might be useful (94% of Texas schools teach abstinence as the only form of sex education while Texas ranks 3rd of 50 states in teen pregnancy rates), things that probably aren’t telling (55% of U.S. millionaires said in January they would not be able to maintain their lifestyle), and things we really didn’t need to know (percentage by which a Georgia sperm bank cut its sales price for “select” sperm in March : 38).
The point is, numbers, like rain, fall from the sky into our garden. We can put up an umbrella, or we can go inside for a while, but what we don't want to do is just stand there and get soaking wet.
David McCullough, the historian, has a small standalone office (shed!) behind his home where he does all of his work. It has no phone. It has no computer. (McCullough composes on a typewriter.) It has electricity. It has books. He allows no adults to visit during the day. It is his garden, with only machines that till the soil allowed. As you know, he does pretty well in that garden.
David Souter, who recently announced his retirement from the Supreme Court, does all of his writing on paper, with a fountain pen. With that simple machine, he authored one of the Court's most complex technological decisions around the illegal use of copying software. One would guess Justice Souter has a very well-fenced, flourishing garden.
It can be done, no question. Because, while we love data, it would be nice--the Prophet suggests--if there were some spaces in our togetherness.
My Memorial Day wish is that you be able, for a few days, to clear your garden of machines and numbers and just enjoy being in it for a few minutes. The world will continue cranking away its data while you are there, and all you’ll need to do on Tuesday morning is get on-line and check the popularity lists to see which numbers are most important.
Meanwhile, I’m going to ride my bike to the store, sans watch or GPS, just to buy a lottery ticket with the numbers 1 2 3 4 5 6. When I hit, we’ll split it. Promise.
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