idiots in aesthetics

to continue from the previous post:
with the industrial revolution and with so much progress in technology, people are finding it harder and harder figuring out where to place art in their society. art is fitting in less and less, as technology invades into our everyday life.
before the existence of emails, people wrote letters. each letter had personality because people could choose the kind of materials they used, and everybody wrote with a different handwriting. until emails came about. handwritings turned into fonts and materials turned into email accounts. communication became something more sterile, less 'raw' and less individualistic. a form of self-expression was kicked out of the picture. (well not completely cuz you still have a choice but still)

"Why have we become like gods as technologists and like devils as moral beings, supermen in science and idiots in aesthetics - idiots above all in the Greek sense of absolutely isolated individuals, incapable of communicating among themselves or understanding one another?" (Lewis Mumford)

have we all become idiots in aesthetics?

but now we see artists and designers who have the knowledge of both worlds trying to combine the two. DSLR's (digital SLR's). my friend who designed a pen that can send messages to phones (the combination of handwriting and technology).
and there are some who are completely into all things vintage - technology dinosaurs. i think in order to keep art functional and alive, we got to find some sort of balance.