Technology Is NOT Destity

Mark Steyn writes vis-a-vis our pathetic assumptions about Egypt's "Facebook Revolution":

The term Facebook Revolution presumes that technology marches in the cause of modernity. But in Khartoum a few years ago a citywide panic that shaking hands with infidels caused your penis to vanish was spread by text messaging. In London, young Muslim men used their cell phones to share Islamist snuff videos of Westerners being beheaded in Iraq. In les banlieues of France, satellite TV and the Internet enable third-generation Muslims to lead ever more dis-assimilated, segregated lives, immersed in an electronic pan-Islamic culture, to a degree that would have been impossible for their grandparents. To assume that Western technology in and of itself advances the cause of Western views on liberty or women's rights or gay rights is delusional.

That's for sure. But don't expect it to change any time soon because delusion is as comforting as it is addictive--and vice versa.