Scientists recently were reportedly"amazed" to discover that fruit flies were capable of "fighter jet" type manoeuvres in response to an enemy- able to bank steeply and reverse their direction of flight within milliseconds. Is it really amazing to discover that nature is capable of feats which approximate to the capabilities of humans?
Such reports are not new and they reflect a worrying naivety among the scientific fraternity and probably much of the mainstream culture. The irony is that nature in all its myriad forms is infinitely complex and incredible- far more so than any technology man has ever been able to create. The problem seems to be that our culture has a rather bloated sense of its own knowledge and understanding. This is despite the fact that every new generation has to revise its previously accepted understanding of the world.
This is not merely an intellectual observation- there are profound social and spiritual implications. Throughout history individuals have felt the need to escape their everyday lives to be closer to nature. Thoreau went to Walden Pond; Carl Jung went to Bollingen and many less famous examples could be quoted. There is clearly something deep in our nature that calls for simplicity and a close relationship with the natural world. And technology represents a wedge driven betwixt us and nature- and therefore between us and our inner being or soul.
Of course, for those who believe, as many do, that man is merely a biological machine that functions according to fixed laws, our relations with technology and other machines does not pose any obvious problems. However, if your understanding, like mine, allows for a much deeper aspect to man's being, then the potential effect that technology has on us should be taken seriously.
During the '70's I became something of an anti-TV missionary. partly motivated by Jerry Mander's book "Four Arguments for the Elimination of TV". Now I think I understand better why I was, and still am so uncomfortable with this medium and what it represents. And its no coincidence that this author has since developed his thesis to incorporate the more recent developments in IT communications. Both TV and the computer create artificial worlds which mesmerise us and form a screen through which we perceive the real world. And of course, with virtual worlds, Avatars and gaming taking hold of more and more of our waking hours, our inner lives are becoming ever more superficial.
I also appears to me that this process of separation that technology triggers in us has the effect of an addiction- as technology attracts us, so we are less able to maintain a healthy balance with our natural environment and our inner life suffers. Whether it be the latest Apple laptop or I-pad, we become mesmerised by the technology- holding us captive within an artificial world that ultimately is unsatisfying. For all the clever marketing that labels these products as interactive and promise to keep us "connected" we are in fact just bit-actors in the global corporations' bigger game.
Of course, IT, virtual reality games and TV are merely one aspect of a wider separation that technology in general has created between us and "nature". The very fact that we use the word 'nature', thereby implying something "out there" just amplifies the problem we are now facing. We are not separate from nature- we are part of it , we ARE nature. But our lives are now so cushioned from this reality, with our centrally-heated houses and cars that blanket out the elements, that we can only see separation- but it is not reality.
If we extrapolate backwards through history and the development of human culture we find a series of quantum jumps in technology which, whilst each will have had great benefits in themselves, will have also resulted in an element of social cost. The Luddites were infamous for their rebellion against the de-skilling and mechanisation of their way of life and their struggle and the values it represented would profitably bear a re-evaluation even today. (A good place to start would be Ralph Borsodi's "This Ugly Civilsation" from 1929).
But even in the early 1800's, mechanisation was well advanced and, as Ludd and his men found, to their cost, society was not ready to learn the lessons that still need to be learnt today. People like Thoreau, Blake, Goethe and a host of others going back throughout history have understood the issue being considered here but the attraction that tools and technology of every type, have over us, hold us back from a balanced appraisal of their relative benefits.
We can of course go further into this by recognising that every aspect of our lives, starting perhaps with clothing, that comes between us and the "natural world" also separates us to an extent. The very first stick used as a tool could be seen as the precursor to a whole process of development now being represented by the laptop and mobile phone and there is a corresponding cost reflected in our social fabric and personal lives.
The decision to be made then is perhaps at what point along this continuum of technological development are we happy to base our lifestyle upon?. This is a hard question, since we share the world with a lot of people who seem only too content to accept whatever new technological and scientific "advance" is thrown at us.
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