Work
His earliest interest lay in the study of rhetorical symbols of democracy. The source of his work was the analysis of speechmakers of totalitarian regimes around the world. His desire was to decipher the power and influence of words. However, he would always return to his fascination with technology and communications.
De Sola Pool eventually became the leading authority on the social and political effects of communications. In 1973, his name appeared in The Communications Handbook, which he defined the social and political effects of technological advances in a chapter called "Public Opinion." In 1983, Pool proved to be at the forefront of technological movement with his publications, such as "Forecasting Telephone and Communication Flows."
Pool was reunited with his former mentors Roger Hurwitz and Hirshue Inose to co-author the work A Census of Japan and the US. This would become one of his last forays into the literary world. He once again defined demand toward a global information society.
De Sola Pool was the chair and founder of the MIT political science department. He was often pulled away from MIT to advise the United States and other governments on various matters. In 1965, he wrote "The Kaiser, the Tsar, and the Computer," an essay about a computer-simulated international crisis. Later, his interest in quantitative analysis and communications would contribute to computer models to study human behavior.
The idea of freedom in all forms was extremely important to Pool. As a young man, Pool was a devout Trotskyite, though he quickly became disillusioned with this form of politics after seeing people's ideals used to take away the freedom for which they had initially fought.
Read more about this topic: Ithiel De Sola Pool
Famous quotes containing the word work:
“Most women without children spend much more time than men on housework; with children, they devote more time to both housework and child care. Just as there is a wage gap between men and women in the workplace, there is a “leisure gap” between them at home. Most women work one shift at the office or factory and a “second shift” at home.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“If work and leisure are soon to be subordinated to this one utopian principle—absolute busyness—then utopia and melancholy will come to coincide: an age without conflict will dawn, perpetually busy—and without consciousness.”
—Günther Grass (b. 1927)
“The only mode of obtaining an answer to these questions of the senses is to forego all low curiosity, and, accepting the tide of being which floats us into the secret of nature, work and live, work and live, and all unawares the advancing soul has built and forged for itself a new condition, and the question and the answer are one.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)