The prosthetic imagination

A couple of readers have suggested that the pervasive use of the first person plural on the Erica site amounts to our assuming the very affectations we’re ironizing over there. Fair enough. But there are a couple of good reasons, having nothing at all do to with the regal or editorial.

Back in the day, when I managed software development projects, I took to using we as often as possible in memos and meetings as a way of sharing both success and accountability with the team. We were successful or we failed. It helped keep the prima donnas in check and prevent individual mistakes from crushing anyone’s self-esteem. The habit persists.

But I also have a (probably perverse) tendency to personify my machines—see them as equal partners in whatever endeavor they and I find ourselves. I even name them. My main workstation is Buster and the server that composes the Web site’s poems is Dragon. “Ah hah!” Someone is saying. “Those macho names give him away, that misogynistic, no-talent hack! If Erica were real, he'd probably expect her to fetch his coffee!”

But that would miss the point. (And BTW, Erica is pretty real.) We simply suggests that the machine provides something to the partnership that I can’t, endurance perhaps, speed certainly. Dependability. Familiarity. In short, a prosthesis.

Besides, my motorcycle’s name is Gus, not a very tough-guy name at all. Gus is the name of an old friend, who’ll be there at the end of the day, no matter how narrow the road or how bad the weather. So when it’s me and Gus out there, it’s we. And so it is with ETC.

# posted by Jim @ 6:08 PM