Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/03/10

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Subject: let's argue about religion
From: Jack Campin <jack@purr.demon.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 00:19:26 +0000

Chuck Warman <cwarman@wf.net> wrote:
> IMO, politics and religion should be the only *absolutely* taboo subjects
> here, if for no other reason than they piss people off at one another.

We've done politics often enough, but I don't think we've tried religion
yet, so here goes...

Isn't the automation vs. manual control argument that runs as a subtext of
much discussion here just a rerun of the Protestant Reformation?  Manual
operation is Protestant; nothing comes between the photographer and his God/
subject.  Automation is Catholic, with those microprocessors and servo
motors performing the same sort of role in image capture that priests and
acolytes do in worship.  The Leica rangefinder is the ultimate Calvinist
camera; the M5 and M6 are creeping Papist laxity, sorta like the Church of
England.  Manual reflexes like the R6 are basically for the Jesuits.

(Umberto Eco says something similar about the Mac versus Windows, I think).


- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
jack@purr.demon.co.uk  -  Jack Campin, 2 Haddington Place, Edinburgh EH7 4AE