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The technophobe is often
called a Luddite, after the revolt of cloth-workers in England who
destroyed the machinery in cotton mills that were rendering their
work obsolete. The technophile is often the technocrat, one who
believes that industry and government should invest heavily in technical
solutions to human problems. In the field of education in particular,
the technophile demands that man learns to conform to the demands
of new technology.
Technology in general
and the electronic communications media (including all types of
information technology) represent great goods, but as with any great
good, they can be the occasion of great evil. It is necessary to
recognize the effects of the media on ourselves as individuals and
on society. As with anything that offers great attractions, it is
necessary to develop an asceticism that preserves us from the abuse
of technology.
Discarnate man and angelism
Although the intellectual
understanding is not the act of any physical organ, the intellect
of man must mature through the process of sense cognition. Without
a sensory life man has no contact with reality, and the intellect
remains empty. One peril of technology is in the illusion that we
can transcend the limits of our bodies. In this sense, Marshall
McLuhan and Bruce Powers warn of the dangers of "discarnate
man," where man loses contact with his body, also called "angelism."[1]
Every technology has
specific and predictable effects on the user. As an instrument it
will extend and amplify some pre-existing human power or organ.
When one power of man is amplified, this affects the order and equilibrium
that exists within man. A man who loses his sight becomes more aware
of his other senses. In fact, parts of the brain which process visual
data in a sighted person, are used to process the data of other
senses in a blind person. When a man regains his sight, the other
senses recede.
Each technology requires
man´s attention in a new way, as it accelerates and extends
a particular human faculty. This requirement of attention means
that man is not only the master and creator of technology, but that
there is a reverse process, whereby man becomes dependent on technology
and is shaped by it.
The user of information
technology finds that physical distance and physical limitations
become irrelevant. It changes the way we relate to our own psycho-somatic
unity, and how we relate to others. The telegraph was the first
electric information technology, and it made people aware of events
on other continents more quickly than they were aware of events
in neighboring villages. Starting with the telegraph, our picture
of the world has changed. The removal of the barrier of distance
in communications has created what McLuhan called the "global
village."
In the English language,
the term "village" means a small community, but also has
a pleasant emotional resonance, of a place of loving neighbors.
McLuhan, however, warned that the global village is not necessarily
a friendly place. The removal of the barriers of distance can also
worsen conflicts.
The overcoming of physical
limitations, and the appearance that the human body itself is obsolete,
is an effect of technologies such as virtual reality and many modes
of computer communications. It is part of modern life that we can
form friendships and associations with people over the Internet
without ever seeing them, and yet may never have spoken with our
closest neighbor.
The temptation of technology
has always existed. The Book of Wisdom describes the effects of
idolatry, where man worships the works of his own hands [Wisdom,
14-15; Psalm 15]. The work of man´s hands is something dependent
upon man for its existence and meaning, and when man puts his own
works in place of a superior being, or as the Supreme Being, he
begins to imitate his own works, and is demeaned. The makers of
idols shall become like them, with eyes that do not see, ears that
do not hear. The reversal of the proper order of man to his products
leads in turn to disorder in all realms of man´s life.
Electric communication
technology goes further than any of the previous products of man´s
skill. Earlier technologies extended the power of man´s limbs,
and with the invention of writing, man´s memory in a sense
could be placed outside of himself. Present communication technologies
supplant man´s external senses, and more recently, the internal
senses of imagination and the most important, the central or common
sense, which brings the various data of the external senses together
into a cohesive unity.
The world of information,
however conceived, may appear to exist in its own right by means
of electronics, and the human user becomes a mere participant in
that world. This involves a process that Marshall McLuhan called
auto-amputation.[2]
At a biological level,
the human organism seeks to maintain a state of homeostasis or equilibrium.
Anything that upsets that balance is a shock to the system and the
system will react in order to restore the balance. This sums up
the clinical observations of Hans Selye, who formulated a general
theory of disease based on stress.[3]
Hans Selye´s observations
concern man´s somatic dimension, but he is aware of the psycho-somatic
unity of man. A perceived threat will result in a physical reaction
as much as actual physical injury. When our ability to gather information
is enhanced by technology, we are placed under greater stress, and
to maintain equilibrium we must find strategies to cope with it.
One strategy is to withdraw
from the flood of information. Another strategy is to try and absorb
it. This has two effects. One effect is that of numbness or anesthesia.
If we cannot control the speed with which information comes to us,
then we become less sensitive to it. The numbing effect is auto-amputation,
where we try to separate the offending faculty from ourselves. The
other effect is pattern recognition. At the same time we become
insensitive to the increased number of individual details, we may
become aware of larger patterns. Another strategy, is to try and
fight the threat to equilibrium, in this case, the increased flow
of information.
In order to give a concrete
example, if we watch television or travel in cars, we are able to
see within a very short time, even within an hour, more individual
faces that our ancestors, who traveled by foot, would see in their
whole lives. Our ability to absorb new faces is limited. The driver
reacts properly by focusing on the task of driving, and diverting
his attention from the increased flow of details such as the faces
of pedestrians.
The television viewer
may react by becoming numb. The faces on television no longer have
an emotional effect on him. He may also feel threatened, and this,
I think, is the root of the feeling that there are too many people
on the earth. A traveler who goes through China and India on foot
does not get the impression that there are too many people. A person
in a large crowd sees perhaps 20 people around him, but a camera
above the crowd reveals a crowd incomprehensible to human imagination.
The widespread anxiety
among people in the First World about there being too many people
is an effect of them seeing thousands of faces on television, whereas
someone may walk for hours on the streets of the suburbs without
seeing a single person.
Thomas Aquinas was aware
of the effects of the senses on the intellect. The senses are necessary
to the life of the intellect, but the senses should also be properly
ordered to the intellect and subordinate to the intellect. A disorder
or imbalance in the sensory realm can lead to a disorder in the
intellect. Since the new technologies place more demands on our
senses as they extend the power of the senses, this same technology
also demands new forms of asceticism.
Medium is message
Every thing that acts,
acts for an end. It is easy to reduce all man´s actions to
the desire for happiness. The ultimate purpose of our actions is
the reason for all the intermediate purposes. To understand the
meaning of McLuhan´s phrase "the medium is the message,"
we need to look to the philosophy of Aristotle and Thomas. Marshall
McLuhan wrote in a letter to J.M. Davey, in the office of Prime
Minister Trudeau:
It turns out then, that
my communication theory is Thomistic to the core. It has the further
advantage of being able to explain Aquinas and Aristotle in modern
terms. We are the content of anything we use, if only because these
things are extensions of ourselves.[4] ...
McLuhan´s primary
insight was that a communication medium apart from the content of
its overt messages has a definite effect on the viewer. With regard
to television, McLuhan´s observation was confirmed when scientists
at General Electric discovered that the brain waves of a television
viewer are altered in the same way by viewing television, without
regard to the content. The measurable effect of television was the
same whether the person was viewing programming or commercials.[5]
The experiments were
repeated by others who expected to disprove McLuhan´s hypothesis
that "the medium is the message," only to have the findings
confirmed.[6] The brain reacts in the same distinctive way to television
as a medium in general. The variety of content has no specific measurable
effect.
Activists often express
grave concern over the moral effects of the content of television
and other media. They are rightly concerned about bad role models
and a high incidence of violence and sexual sensuality. They are
also legitimately concerned about how affluence portrayed on television
can make people dissatisfied with their material condition.
I recognize these as
legitimate concerns, but the primary concern should be on the medium
itself. The electronic media have in themselves a narcotic effect
on the abuser. In a day when governments and international bodies
battle the marketing of chemical substances, no one is mobilized
to counteract the negative effects of the electronic media.
The electronic media
upsets normal community and family relations based on physical contact
and proximity, leading to an ersatz community where people have
the illusion of being angels. People in their relations are reduced
to being pieces of disembodied information without context or substance.
We do not distinguish
between the use of morphine as an aid to inspiration (Edgar Allan
Poe), and its use as an escape from intolerable conditions (the
user in the American slum). The extensive use of such drugs is dangerous
and addictive in both cases. Yet we do not apply the same prudence
with regard to the media.
The level of sensation
present in our lives affects our intellectual judgment. Thomas Aquinas
discusses two related cases of intellectual debility arising from
an imbalance in the sensory realm. The first is dullness of the
intellectual sense (hebetudo sensus), which arises from immersion
in the pleasures of food. The second is intellectual blindness (caecitas
mentis), which arises as the result of excessive sexual pleasures
[Summa Theologica II-II q. 15 a. 1-3; q. 46. A. 1-3]. The dulling
of the intellectual sense still leaves a functioning intellect.
However, what a pure heart can see quickly, the dull sense must
labor to see. The intellect is lacking in penetrative power. In
the case of intellectual blindness, the intellect is completely
unable to consider spiritual realities.
If we extend this to
the effect of the media, the media serve to provide us with greater
amounts of information. This is true of the printed media, since
the amount of information disseminated by books and newspapers is
far more than what one could learn from conversation in a pre-literate
society. It is more true of the electronic media, where we are provided
not only with the entire world through symbols, but we are provided
with the auditory and visual sensations of the whole world. The
media would not continue to grow unless there were an immense appetite
for knowledge. Such as it is today, that appetite is disordered.
If truth is a good, and
even the truth about worthless or evil things is a good compared
to falsehood about the same things, then how can the truth be a
danger? The human mind has for its purpose to know the truth. Aristotle
taught that when we know something, in a way we become that thing,
and in a way we make that thing [De Anima, III, v-vi. 430a 10-20].
Knowledge is the intentional
existence of the known object in the knowing subject, where the
object forms or informs the subject as knower. Each person has but
one mind, and that mind can only know one thing at a time. If we
think of several things at once, it is only because we have grasped
them in some unity, as in knowing a whole, we know in a confused
way the parts, or in knowing a relation, we know in a confused way
the things that come together in a relational unity [Summa Theologica,
I q. 84 a. 4].
In knowledge itself,
there is an hierarchy of values. The highest value is to know God,
and other values in knowledge come below that. A mind distracted
by lesser things cannot know God.
We may draw some practical
conclusions.
First, it is necessary
to become aware of the effect of any media upon our cognitive relation
to reality, and its effect upon our appetites.
Second, we should recognize
that technology is a good thing in itself, as it is part of God´s
command to man that he subdue the earth, but we should recognize
that if we rely on technology to solve all human problems, we are
becoming idolaters. Idolatry puts man at a lower level than the
idol, and the result is personal and social disorder.
Third, the right use
of technology means that we should also counteract its attractions.
Communications technology concerns man´s most basic appetite,
the appetite to realize one´s self through knowledge. However,
the mere quantity of information may distract us from knowledge
which is of true value.
The most dangerous attitude
is that of one who sits in front of the television set or computer
terminal without a critical attitude. Since the machine is on, he
takes up a passive and receptive stance. The Christian practices
of fasting and abstinence are perhaps easy compared with consciously
limiting of our use of the media, yet that is required for mental
and moral health.
Condensed
from Redbook, 224 W. 5th Ave., New York, N. Y., 10019-3200. Sept.
1999. © 1999, by The Hearst Corporation. Reprinted with permission
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