Context Blindness

“In this provocative and highly accessible book, Eva Berger identifies caetexia as a major malady of today’s times, one that bears a wide array of personal, social and political symptoms. Her abundant examples and theoretical connections allow readers to see key patterns across many different changes occurring throughout the contemporary world. In identifying context blindness as an unanticipated evolutionary consequence of digital media, Berger makes our fragmented, disconnected, and perplexing world more intelligible and more understandable. Tom Wolfe famously asked of Marshall McLuhan’s work, ‘What if he is right?’ I could not help but think along the same lines regarding Berger’s bold and sobering work here: ‘What if she is right?’” —Corey Anton, Vice-President of the Institute of General Semantics, Professor of Communication Studies, Grand Valley State University “In Context Blindness, Dr. Eva Berger presents a persuasive case that human beings, shaped by the media environments we have created, are evolving to a species that will not or cannot attend to the contexts we inhabit. Our ever-present connection to the internet that first intruded upon our sacred spaces (family dinner, classrooms, and churches) has now simply erased our understanding of how behaviors and spaces might differ. This erasure has replaced questions about what subjects and actions are appropriate in a specific context with arguments about trigger warnings and safe spaces—ultimately making no space safe. The algorithms that rule our lives are encouraging cancel culture and blinding us to the very idea of perspective. With an artful and passionate prose, Berger has issued a warning that the toxic human behaviors we are observing may be a natural selection provoked by our own inventions.”—Missy Alexander, Provost, Western Connecticut State University “This is an urgent, stirring, and relevant book. It revives media theory that has been unjustly pushed aside in the digital age and focuses on some of the most interesting challenges we face.” —Siva Vaidhyanathan, Author, Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy “At once a penetrating social analysis and an eloquent lament for where we are now and where we may be headed, this book is required reading for anyone who wants to understand the source of our failings and delusions. Dr. Berger presents a clear, cogent, and concise diagnosis of the ills of present-day culture, one that is essential if we are to begin to seek healing by reclaiming our real, human contexts once more.”—Douglas Rushkoff, Author, Present Shock and Team Human