Cross-posted from Philisophical Fragments, a blog by Timothy Dalrymple at Patheos.com.
When I heard that Steve Jobs had passed away, the first person I asked for thoughts was Andy Crouch. Jobs was clearly a “culture maker” in multiple senses, and Andy (author of Culture Making) has established himself as one of America’s preeminent commentators on Christian faith and the shaping, consumption, and especially the production of culture. Presumably Andy was already putting his thoughts together, as he responded with this link and permission to reprint from his own site:
Steve Jobs was a supreme example of a culture maker. He made cultural goods, in every sense of that word. “Real artists ship,” he famously told his engineers. Culture is only changed when you make more of it, and, boy, did Steve Jobs make more of it. He pursued excellence, and in particular he pursued beauty. In every market Apple entered, it did things more cleanly, elegantly, and beautifully than its competitors. It’s not too much to credit Steve Jobs with the return of beauty to the center of our culture’s aspirations.Read more of this post here.