Shore and techno-totemism

This is an extremely interesting and well-written treatise on psychic unity vs psychic diversity. Shore marshals so many diverse sources into a compelling and clear argument. One of the core tensions of the book - the processing of information and the creation of meaning is extremely compelling; however, I want to flag one particular aspect of his argument that does not seem to make sense. The technology chapter focuses primarily on the development of technologies that process information. Shore argues that the worlds generated by what he calls "techno-totemism" results in "the loss of integrating contexts for experience" (159). He also describes word-processing as transforming our experience of language to the degree that "it is the loss of the poiesis of creation, a loss upon which this new technology of the word is founded" (144).

Granted, the chapter is way out of date with regard to technology, but what he is arguing seems to go against the grain of the rest of the book. If meaning is created analogically by processing information in the context of elements such as environment and memory, then surely technology and the representations of the world that it produces function in a similar way? Simply, rather than a purely information-crunching apparatus that creates a false simulacra of the world, doesn't technology blend into our meaning-making processes in a more organic fashion?

Shore's rather contradictory view of technology stands out among the other more convincingly argued ethnographic chapters. Maybe he just did not really have a good handle on the topic at the time of writing. In any case, it brings up an issue that I think is pertinent to the class: How do we figure technology into cultural modeling and schemas? If anyone has ideas about this, I would love to hear them!