I'd say the evidence provided for Huxley is less clearly damning than that provided for Orwell, but it's still a good clear text that could spark some solid discussions with students.
Digital humanists eschew the label "computational" because it draws an uneasy connection to computer science, whereas scientists embrace it because, hey, who doesn't use computation?
the digital humanities more frequently adopt rather than invent their tools
Let's imagine the best scenario. If the humanities are an agency of espionage, then the digital humanities would be its Q Division, the R&D arm that invents and deploys new methods in support of its mission. But we're not there. We're not close. How come?
This is a bittersweet pill. On the one hand, it's encouraging that the digital humanities look to the outside for inspiration and influence—it's one example of a re-orientation of humanistic practice toward the world and its interests. But on the other hand, the rationale for that orientation is somewhat perverted; it is motivated primarily by an inward-looking reformational interest. This is why so much of the talk in digital humanities is about digital humanities. This is institution-building, not world-building.
worst case
techno-liberalism
the digital humanities becomes an organizational-political lever to advance arguments for the reformation of the humanities, but whose means of reformation is primarily self-reflexive, and whose manner of executing on that self-reflexive reformation relies largely on imported materials and methods to bulk up the ramparts that would protect humanism from the world it might otherwise enter
But the lower faculties must resist the temptation to partake of daily life only just enough to mine convenient resources into makeshift parapets
And yet, for the most part, our writing pedagogies remain unchanged in composition classrooms
This is how we generally view computers and writing. It's one more thing to do.
And this is how we view the digital humanities as well. It's one more thing to do.
it seems rhetorically savvy to take up invitations like Jobs' as an opportunity to participate in the world. Yes, we would say, the humanities do have an important role in the development of new technologies. We do have something to say about creativity, ethics, communication, community, and such that are integral to technological design and use, theory and practice.
How would one bracket off the technologies in which one is immersed to practice a non-digital humanities?