In Emergency, Break Glass
What Nietzsche Can Teach Us About Joyful Living in a Tech-Saturated World
-
- $27.99
Publisher Description
An Ars Technica Holiday Reading Title of 2021
A lively and approachable meditation on how we can transform our digital lives if we let a little Nietzsche in.
Who has not found themselves scrolling endlessly on screens and wondered: Am I living or distracting myself from living? In Emergency, Break Glass adapts Friedrich Nietzsche’s passionate quest for meaning into a world overwhelmed by “content.”
Written long before the advent of smartphones, Nietzsche’s aphoristic philosophy advocated a fierce mastery of attention, a strict information diet, and a powerful connection to the natural world. Drawing on Nietzsche’s work, technology journalist Nate Anderson advocates for a life of goal-oriented, creative exertion as more meaningful than the “frictionless” leisure often promised by our devices. He rejects the simplicity of contemporary prescriptions like reducing screen time in favor of looking deeply at what truly matters to us, then finding ways to make our technological tools serve this vision. With a light touch suffused by humor, Anderson uncovers the impact of this “yes-saying” philosophy on his own life—and perhaps on yours.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Anderson (The Internet Police), deputy editor at Ars Technica, explains in this unorthodox and often funny guide what Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy has to say about coping with modern technology and information overload. The author found in Nietzsche's work a way to reclaim his life from an endless stream of emails and media, particularly via the philosopher's belief that creation gives life purpose. "Ease, comfort, pleasure—they are all fine as far as they go, but they are certainly not life's point; creative exertion, even struggle, makes life matter," Anderson writes, contending that technology has bred contentment but not happiness because it has reduced opportunities for original thought. To forge a more meaningful life, the author recommends taking Nietzsche's advice to "sit as little as possible" and engage in outdoor physical activities, which foster presence. Anderson finds in Nietzsche's "hostility against new books" a prescription for deep-reading favorites rather than indiscriminately consuming digital and print media. Unconventional arguments (read less, forget more) and Anderson's facility in distilling the useful from Nietzsche's writings while tossing the "bad, cruel or juvenile" breathe some refreshing originality into the screen obsession discourse. This is a must-read for anyone overwhelmed by the Information Age.
