Pragmatic Technology
S. M. Gollmer
Technology affects us whether we want it or not. The instrumentation of time provides a standard by which individual and societal productivity is measured. If the world were not so interconnected, it would be possible to dictate our own pace of life. However, that ideal is no longer available. No longer can we languish by Walden Pond. To do so requires one to have wealth sufficient to own land, pay taxes on the land, maintain a shelter, and provide sustenance. Our utopian view of the good life butts up against the pragmatic reality of living in a physical world. It is possible to live life without the constraint of possessions, but we often associate this lifestyle with homelessness, which is seldom chosen as an ideal by most people. Often this tension between the ideal and pragmatic is blamed on technology. But this misrepresents the situation.
Technological development requires people to act pragmatically. Leonardo da Vinci is credited as a great inventor; however, few of his imaginations achieved working success. His influence was in the realm of art and only centuries later appreciated for his scientific and engineering insights. He was a man ahead of his time. In his days the state of material science was rudimentary, incapable of providing the structural strength and lightness needed for his designs. Leonardo’s idealistic visions were not achievable until the pragmatic application of physical principles made them a reality. Pragmatism is not an enemy but a constraint on what can be achieved.
Technological pragmatism becomes a hinderance to flourishing when it constrains humanity into a utilitarian existence. In the early days of the industrial revolution, children were employed with low wages for 12+ hours per day. Seeing this a necessity of technological progress relegates humanity to the role of just another piece of machinery. No consideration is made apart from increasing productivity and reducing costs. In the intervening centuries, labor laws have protected individuals from explicit exploitation. However, the pragmatic drive to improve efficiency makes technological development a constant threat.
What is more insidious is when we act pragmatically to get ahead in the technological world. We vigorously pursue the best paying jobs so we can afford to satisfy our immediate desires without a thought of who we are and what we are becoming. The technological world provides a large variety of choices, making it easier to be entertained without boredom. By focusing on immediate needs and desires, we withdraw into ourselves and see less need to express the idealistic creativity that made Leonardo famous. We voluntarily become lesser shells of ourselves thus reinforcing the perception that each human is reducible to a machine.
The solution is not rejecting technology but changing the criteria of progress away from efficiency. In The Technological Society, Ellul sees both free-market and socialistic systems driven by a greater force, that of technique. Technique expands beyond machinery to the ordering of society and human interaction so that we become compatible with an expanding machination of the world. Ellul describes how the immaterial aspect of humanity is shaped and manipulated by propaganda and concedes that this process is inescapable. The trap of technique is to think of humanity as merely an advanced animal. If we are to have a proper view of technology and its role in our lives, we need to understand what it means to be truly human and let that change our definition of progress.
Posted in: Needed and Wanted 22nd Century