ADMINISTERING THE UNIVERS ITY OF THE FUTURE
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so asking whether or not there's a website on a certain subject is not the
same as asking if there is a television program about it.
Speaker:
When you talk about e-mail and Internet websites, I think we
should keep in mind the quality of the resources. Writing a letter, which
you may keep for life and which is printable, is very different from email.
Speaker:
E-mail is printable.
Bernard Avishai:
Some is. But when you started playing guitar, how good
were you the first two, three years? You've got to start somewhere. You're
not going to print or record everything that you play on your guitar at first.
Jon Westling:
All tools are what we make of them. I am old enough to
remember a very similar case being made at the advent of television: the
transformative effect it might have
if
properly used. I believe those argu–
ments were true thenjust as your arguments about the potential of the new
media are true now. Alas, I watch too much television and I spend too
much time looking at the world wide web to think that ei ther is likely to
live up to that potential in the culture that we now must work with. But
that the potential is there, I think, is certain and unarguable.
Edith Kurzweil:
We'll close on this note and then we'll come back for
our last session. Please come back in a few minutes.
