In Mark Slouka's essay, "The Road to Unreality," society's "growing separation from reality" (95) is examined and questioned by this self-proclaimed humanist. Slouka claims that technology is forcing people towards an existence of unreality, where the "nakedness of face-to-face communication, [and] the rough force of the natural world" (96) are becoming not only things of the past, but things now approached with fear and hesitation. With such examples as television, CDs, virtual reality, and communities, Slouka attempts to make his point clear; technology is taking over the human life processes that society is used to, and if people do not jump on the bandwagon, they will be left behind as "roadkilll on the digital highway" (101). His argument is this: The technological revolution can be dangerous and socially debilitating.

Slouka presents allusions and images to help his audience understand how technology is taking over these processes and how this takeover is moving quicker and quieter than we believe. Of course, the audience can think of other examples and can scoff at his; nevertheless, there is not a lack of evidence. He compares the speed of this technological progression to movement over a landscape. When one walks across a landscape, one can "experience the particular reality of place: its smells, sounds, colors, textures, and so on" (96). When people drive across, or better yet, fly over a landscape, the car or plane distances them and the speed makes the experience seem vaguely unreal.

His warrants are valid, in my opinion, but are also somewhat based on opinion. I happen to agree with them, but others who believe that this is where the future must go might not agree. One point Slouka makes is that "technology is a never neutral force: it orders our behavior, redefines our values, reconstitutes our lives in ways we can't always predict" (99) and "establishes the rules by which people live" (99). These statements are true no matter what side a person is on. The question is, are we as a society willing to give in to technology and let it establish these rules and redefine our values? He also states, in defense of his argument, that "human culture depends on the shared evidence of the senses" (101). By saying this, he makes it clear that the movement towards a virtual world would eliminate these senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. How can we smell or touch someone who is not in front of us, much less real?

This essay's audience includes those who do not understand the aspects of this revolution, those who happily do, and those who are very much opposed to it. For the audience that does not agree with him, Slouka makes it clear that he is not totally opposed to the "contemporary wonders" of technology (99). He acknowledges that technology is helpful in many ways, especially in medical fields and forms of communication. His real problem is with the "relatively small but disproportionately influential group of self-described 'Net religionists' and 'wannabe gods' who believe that the physical world can (and should) be 'downloaded' into a computer, who believe that the future of mankind is not in RL (real life) but in some form of VR (virtual reality), who are working very hard (and spending enormous amounts of both federal and private money) to engineer their very own version of the apocalypse" (100).

I believe that the last statement would be the qualifier in this essay. Here Slouka makes it clear who he disagrees with and why. Actually, he makes it clear what his gripes are throughout the essay, but it is in this statement that his position is made crystal clear. Slouka does an excellent job with the use of images and examples; they contain a certain amount of sarcasm, and this tone works successfully at driving his points home. The only thing that makes this essay weak is that he seems to digress, and his own complaining voice comes through at times. There is no reason that the writer's voice should not appear, but it should not sound whiny as his sometimes does.

Slouka,Mark. "The Road to Unreality." CyberReader. 2nd ed. Ed. Victor J. Vitanza. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1999. 250-252.

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