This paper analyzes Mark Kingwell's essay on the future of intimacy, examining how he uses personal anecdotes, etymology, statistics, and philosophical reflection to explore the tension between modern technology and genuine human connection. The paper traces Kingwell's argument from the personal — his travels across Canada — to the political, showing how he connects private intimacy to public responsibility. It discusses his parsing of the word "intimacy," his critique of middle-class retreat into private comfort, and his ultimately measured advice to focus on improving everyday community life rather than fixating on grand technological futures.
"I have been away from home a lot lately," states Mark Kingwell, giving his essay on the future of intimacy an immediate and personal quality. The reader is suddenly drawn into the process of writing and made to feel as if sitting on Kingwell's shoulder, observing him as he muses upon the issues outlined in the essay while traveling from Toronto to Ottawa to Montreal, Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary. The places where the essay was penned span the "vastness of variety of Canada" as well as Boston and upstate New York (Kingwell 267). Kingwell uses specific locations and cities to stress the reality of his journey while writing, as well as Canada's diversity — a place where "cool kids" are different in Quebec than on the West Coast (Kingwell 267). How can true intimacy be possible, he suggests, when the world has grown so large and diverse?
Kingwell's use of specific anecdotes to persuade the reader is also evident in his use of statistics. He notes that despite the ease of connection conveyed by telephone, Internet, and airplane, a significant portion of the world will die before making a single telephone call (Kingwell 268). We take the small miracles of our technological lives for granted and fail to recognize the needs of the wider world community with whom we are not closely intimate. Upon more careful reflection, even photographs of the past are miraculous, Kingwell suggests. He uses a reference to his father's Harry Connick haircut in an old photograph to suggest how the past and present are made one with technology — just as he can speak with Calgary and England while doing his laundry via email (Kingwell 268).
We have come to take technology for granted. Technology can create intimacy through the generations and across geographical boundaries, but it can also shut technological "have-nots" out of our world, because our private, intimate bubbles make things like email seem universally ubiquitous when they are not.
Kingwell even parses the word "intimacy" for a better understanding of what it signifies. "Intimacy" comes from the Latin term for the most personal aspects of life. Yet English has also created a similar-sounding verb with a slightly different meaning: to "intimate" is to send out a covert message. To intimate is to share a kind of whispered communication; to be intimate is to be inward-looking and private (Kingwell 268).
The meanings of intimacy and intimate become a metaphor for all of human life — "this play of closeness and distance." Communicating in whispers suggests we are trapped in our own prisons of subjectivity, and frequently misconstrue the words of others or hear false intimations, even while we seek intimate connections with fellow human beings (Kingwell 268). "We keep trying" to communicate in what Kingwell likens to a child's game of telephone, where words are often misunderstood (Kingwell 268).
"Kingwell links private technological life to public responsibility"
"Kingwell urges community focus over grand technological prophecy"
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