Steven Johnson has written a bold little book that very nearly undermines the only moral precept of my adult life: thou shalt not get into video games, since then thou really won’t, ever, get any work done. Thank heavens, his argument wasn’t quite that good; but it came extremely close.
His key thesis is this: ‘popular culture has been growing increasingly complex over the past few decades, exercising our minds in powerful new ways.’ He economically dispatches the notion that culture has anything to tell us about moral right- eousness, which is a blessing, since I (racistly) never quite trust Americans to know the difference between proselytising and educating. It isn’t showing us the difference between right and wrong, this output, but it is making us more cognitively competent.
He starts on the video game, a more lucrative industry, worldwide, than music and books combined.
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