Whither Technology, Whither Man?
When the world feels as if it is out of control, one’s mind boggles at the possibility of a myriad catastrophes. There could be a nuclear war, or a famine, or unimaginable floods or viral diseases, or the disappearance of jobs, or the displacement of humans by robots, or the vanishing of one’s hard earned savings or the unleashing of the raw emotion of hatred through fermentation of feelings of racial or identity superiority and worse, many, many times worse events.
As a result we are seeing a variety of behaviours springing up, sourcing from deep fear, reflecting a mass catharsis. There is a flight into the spiritual realm of prayer and ritual or the pouring out of one’s frustration on the streets in road rage or the intolerance of any dissension, or indulging in inhuman behaviour like the raping of children, or the heaping of abuse on the aged and infirmed, or the radical cutting off of oneself from the reality of today’s experience through isolation and reclusiveness or utter cynicism cutting a swathe through our daily encounters and ultimately in the taking of one’s own life.
The nature of the world today demands us to reflect on what has gone so wrong. There could be a plethora of explanations….
Have we placed our trust in technology at the expense of protecting the dignity of the human person? At the heart of life is the experience of fulfilling relationships. And it is the trust one experiences in a relationship that builds the dignity of the human person. However, instead of building trust in human relationships are we placing an inordinate amount of trust in technology? Is technology the panacea for all our ills or the source of all our distress?
In our rush to erase the mystery out of life are we responsible for obliterating the beauty and richness of life? Are we humans just data and algorithms? Is nature to be replaced with commercial capital? Will we soon be paying exorbitant amounts just to see an eye — soothing and soul — satisfying verdant and lush countryside? Will we be handicapped in finding the path to true human fulfillment when machines will be manipulating us and reducing us to quantitative metrics to be processed? Nature and man are inherently connected and interdependent.
Has greed made us impervious to the peril of destroying nature and man? Our voracious appetite for aggrandisement of wealth has seen us destroy nature to build unwieldy structures not in harmony with the environment and extract nature’s capital faster than it can replenish it and exploit human resources beyond their reasonable limits to deliver results in the form of colossal revenues and profits.
Our desire to achieve total control of the human being and nature through technology has left us devoid of what is essential to fulfill us as human beings. We need to experience the human qualities of love and respect and compassion and inclusion and honesty and truthfulness and discipline and accountability in a fully human manner. With all our foibles and struggles and failures and successes, yet fully human and fully alive. We need a renaissance of humanity to celebrate what it means to be human.
