Essay on typography: A good craftsman never blames his tools?

It’s a Poor Craftsman that blames his tools.

Is it Technology itself, or Purpose and Usage that dictates results?
Furthermore, what causes bad typography; does it rest in our hands, or cold metal and circuit boards.

I detest myspace.com, I sometimes dislike phone texts, find google annoying and find email limiting. Yet paradoxically, I’m fascinated by the technology that enables them, and believe its merits out weigh these imperfections.

From what I have researched, there is no hard or fast rule, nor concrete answer to the question posed in my title. It is often down to personal opinion— a complicated set of affairs. There are so many factors which can effect weather we perceive something is horrid or agreeable. The time, place, environment, period, context, geographic location, fashion, trends, social culture, boredom, politics, war, conditioning and sensibilities… the list goes on. Technology didn’t suddenly create all of the above… nor is it an evil mastermind.
We are to blame, like a killer pulling a trigger on a gun.

Technologies purpose is almost always originally set with aims in mind, and these aims are always open for alteration. Technology is often coupled with advertising, which I will discuss in later chapters. Without a purpose the technology is void, useless and pointless. Ergo my point; that we create the purpose. Therefore it is not strictly speaking ‘technology’ which has detrimental effects upon typography. Yes, it can force upon us restrictions, limitations, but even so… they are still all our monopoly. Rules can almost always be broken. As Neville Brody points out “the way something is presented will define the way you react to it”. It is these conditions and formats of representation, which in my opinion form my earlier idea of personal opinion. To use an analogy; technology moves the goal posts of representation and presentation. When these change, new opinions are formed. We are conditioned to rules of current representation and then out of nowhere can occur a challenge to this conditioning. Yet we still control it, we are the thinkers and technology is just a medium. How we interpret, and the effects of this challenge, can either be good or bad.

I aim to discuss how it is other factors, which underpin this façade that technology has damaging effects on typography. I believe it is our desires, needs, cultural evolution, war and revolution that shape technology. But I might also add, a big part of this equation is also money.

... (and this is all I have so far)

I think personally that to an extent technology is eroding the art of typography, however it's not the fault of technology per-sey.
What' I'd say was happening is that while the technological advancements of DTP have made the art of typography much more rich, it has also put that technology in to the hands of people who do not understand it.

For example:

Give an experienced designer photoshop and they will create something balanced, thought out and well implemented.

Give an office worker photoshop and they will probably create a pixelated mess with overbearing typefaces and gaudy colours.

It's not technology that is killing typography, not by far, it's the people who think that because they have the technology they know about typography.
It's directly comparable with campaigns for aid for Africa; Give a man bag of grain and he'll feed himself for a day... Give him the equipment and training to grow the grain and he'll feed himself for a year.

You can't expect to be able to create beautiful type because you can change the font in Word, much like you wouldn't know how to drive simply because you bought a car.

Lack of awareness and training is the problem.

The technology is like a tool that without the proper safety equipment could cause loss of limbs.