S8E3 - Turning Devices Into Instruments—with Andy Crouch

Device & Virtue

Author Andy Crouch says that we’re doing it all wrong—smartphones aren’t giving us the life we’re looking for. We asked him how to fix it, plus whether he’d ever own a robot dog.

Andy is our first returning guest to Device & Virtue! This time, he joins us to talk about his new book, The Life We’re Looking For. We take his ideas for a test drive, and run into everything from dishwashers and furnaces to Slack and electric cars.

Plus, we ask Andy to resolve some arguments from past episodes. He weighs in on Ring doorbells, robot dogs, communion online, and AI art generators. His hot takes will keep you on your toes.

Andy Crouch is partner for theology and culture at Praxis Labs and author of multiple books including his latest, The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World, and his earlier book, The Tech-Wise Family. A public speaker and professional musician, Andy was executive editor of Christianity Today from 2012 to 2016 and served the John Templeton Foundation as senior strategist for communication in 2017. Most importantly, he received a shout-out in Lecrae's 2014 single “Non-Fiction.”

LINKS

For more about Andy and all his books, check out his website. Follow him on Twitter.

Andy first joined us with his daughter Amy to talk about her book, My Tech-Wise Life, back in Season 5.

Check out our past episodes for more on the topics we talked about with Andy.

• DALL-E
• Electric Cars
• Slack
• Robot Dogs
• Ring Doorbell
• Communion Online

Andy mentions “prompt battles.” We did a little digging. Learn more about them here.

Andy adapts his analysis of instruments and devices from the work of philosopher Albert Borgmann, who first introduced “the device paradigm” in his 1984 book, Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life. Borgmann writes more about it in his newer book Power Failure.

QUOTES FROM THE LIFE WE'RE LOOKING FOR

"God and Mammon ... are precisely opposed to each other. God wishes to put all things into the service of persons and ultimately to bring forth the flourishing of creation through the flourshing of persons. Mammon wants to put all persons into the service of things and ultimately to bring about the exploitation of all creation." (p78)

"So, rather than actually creating machines that understand the infinitely creative and complex world of human culture, we will find that it is far easier to create attenuated cultural environments that treat persons like machines." (p97)

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