Emergent/Mac Tie-in Confirmed

As a MAC user, I’m offended by the analogy! ;-) It also goes against a long-standing analogy from Umberto Eco that suggests the opposite: that MAC is Catholic and that MS-DOS is Protestant (see http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6642/mac_dos.html ). Granted, this comes from the days when PC users were imprisoned by DOS (I’m guessing not many “emergent” folks remember back before Windows 3.1?). What we’ve witnessed in PC computing, then, is the catholicization of protestantism! I keep hoping for the same with respect to religious practice.

Heh. Now all I need’s the goatee.

I’ve always been suprised that emergentness is more affilliated with mac-ness than with Ubuntu-ness, mostly b/c Ubuntu’s core values seems to be a LOT more in line with emergent thinking, no matter what strain.

Of course, that might be the pinko, free-source, Richard Stallman-loving commie in me coming out, hehehe.

I feel slightly offended and unfairly evaluated by this, but I am a white male reading this from my Mac, so I have no valid response : )
Mac’s have nothing to do with style really. It’s about functionality. So I do not apologize for my Mac-ness. Being a white male is unfortunately about style and not so much functionality : )

i too am a white male. no goatee. my wife wont allow it. but i do work from a pc. windows vista no less. so i cant be held down by the man.

As an “emergent” person I am not happy to be associated with Mac. The Mac brand represents the most evil aspects of empire by manipulating public opinion through false public relations (i.e. brainwashing kids to think buying these products will make them “cool”).

Following Jesus in an emergent (less modern and more authentic) way would mean rejecting the image conscious brand promotion of the Mac and other corporate entities.

I’ve never seen a Mac commercial that once mentioned their actual product specs. It is all about emotional manipulation. I hope more emergent books will promote thier “specs” rather than the emotional hype. It does appear that many early emergent books were more hype than specs, but I feel the trend is shifting as the specs are becoming more developed.

Watch the documentary “Merchants of cool” to learn more about media manipulation through branding.
http://freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=159

Hmm, I’m thinking about getting a MacBook. Should I not? I agree with what Mike is saying that Mac’s are more about the appeal and aesthetics of them all. But…I could be wrong.

Wow. Honestly I can’t believe this thread has taken off like this! Thanks to everyone who’s posted thoughts here. I think the Ubuntu comparison is an interesting one. From a practical standpoint, anyone who is going to be involved in any media-related work (design, video editing, etc.) will most likely be better equipped on a Mac. That’s the real reason I’m a Mac user, not to be “cool,” etc. I think it’s kinda dumb to pay more money just to be “cool.” It’s about functionality, what can it do for you, etc. So Mac isn’t for everyone. And that’s OK ;-)

As a Mac user I’m happy to be associated with “emergent” persons :-)

Seriously, manipulation were all there was to the Mac brand, Mike L. would have a point. But it’s lost on me. I’ve been a software developer for almost 30 years. I find there’s a lot of substance behind the hype. I’m not looking to be “cool”. (At my age that’s an impossible goal.) I just appreciate the attention to excellence in design and detail that Apple puts in to their products. It sets them apart from most of their competitors. If the “specs” weren’t there, I don’t think they would be nearly as successful. Not that this justifies everything that Apple does. Compared to Microsoft, Apple is an angel (I don’t want to argue. This is just my experience as a user, programmer, and observer. No Windows PC user can make me feel guilty about my Mac.) That said, I’ve also been won over by Ubuntu. I agree it represents my values better. It’s just that OS X got there first and it’s much easier to use for most peole. Most of all, they’re both UNIX at heart.

I think these little Mac Commercial parodies do the trick! This one is my favorite:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYdD-Qc7lbY

There is nothing wrong with Mac products, but their propaganda techniques are examples of all the worst traits of our greed based society. Christians have bought into this as much as everyone else. I guess that is just part of the imperial domestication of our faith.

Well if that is true, then “emergents” are a lot more reliable, secure and dependable? As a 3 month old mac-convert, reading this on a mac, I take that as a compliment.