Wild purple roses and gnarly sticks and one of those electric can-openers from GE

"What are we likely to carry with us when we ask that our relationship with all technologies should be like that we have with the technology of printed words?"
What is the "technology of printed words"?

Does this technology pertain to comprehension of writing in a technology based medium or does it merely delineate the dividing line between engine/ering of thought and the human/ity of thought?

The idea of computers in the writing classroom is one that has been lit upon a few times this semester. Dusted, discussed in brief and tossed aside and stored under the idea of academic progression.

My point (of weapons) isn’t to chose a side in this argument/diss/ent/con/cussion. It’s merely to dazed, bleary eyed, stare at a screen through glasses (which have been tinted so that I don’t get a headache from the glare), and think about what I am doing right now, think about what I’m posing/posturing about.
The computer in the writing classroom could be seen as that annoying machine in the garden.

Get it out! It’s ruining the ambiance of my nature/al state.
I want to pull the weeds myself. I want to till the land with my own scuffling tools.

Until my hands become too dirty. Until my fingers are sore. Until I can’t bend anymore. Then I retire to the sidelines to straighten my back, to take off my gloves, to put down my trowel. Upon my straightening my eyes/regard/intellect/opinions fall again/light upon that horrid machine gleaming in my organic primitivism.
It’s a challenge.

We intelligentsia bow to progress. With the lowered gaze of respect/shame we ac/knowledge what we are confronted with in this, our organic classroom. The room of holistic rubric. As if that structure could be defined as such. We cover our structure with the bright blooms of the moon flowers and the marigolds. We cover the engine and the battery and the blades with sunflowers. We drape our beautiful green ivy over the imposing steel. We tried to adapt. We try to use equal amounts of nature in our gardens.
But it is so easy to not dig by hand. It is so easy to not use a pen.
Click.
Click.
Click.
The scratches of the pen/quill/trowel are drowning in the marching tap of technology.
My hands won’t be as calloused this spring.

No one will be able to tell how much I love my garden, my potatoes, my lettuce, my corn.
But maybe I liked that my hands were sore. Maybe I liked that my muscles ached and that I had to spend hours in the blinding/suffocating sun so that I could get the radishes in on time.
Maybe that’s why I plant my garden every year.

Machine in the garden.
Computers in the composition classroom.