As
I see it, the principal danger confronting those of us who live
in a technological age was spoken of some years ago in a prophetic
poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay. The poem is from her book, "Huntsman,
What Quarry?", and this is a fragment of it in which Ms.
Millay describes, as only a great poet can do, precisely the problem
we face. She wrote:
Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour,
Rains from the sky a meteoric shower
Of facts....they lie unquestioned, uncombined.
Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill
Is daily spun, but there exists no loom
To weave it into fabric...
What
the poet speaks of here is a great paradox. Beginning in the nineteenth
century, humanity creatively addressed the problem of how to eliminate
information scarcity, how to overcome the limitations of space,
time and form. In the early nineteenth century, for example, a
message could travel only as fast as a human being, which on a
train was 35 miles per hour. Language, either written or spoken,
was very nearly the only form in which messages could be codified;
and, of course, most people did not have access to the expanding
knowledge being generated in many fields. And so we attacked these
problems with great vigor, and triumphed over them in spectacular
fashion.
As
a result, in the nineteenth century, we remade the world through
technology - or, if you will, through multiple media - unclashing
a meteoric shower of facts. For those of you unfamiliar with the
nineteenth century, here are some of the inventions that contributed
to the remaking of the world: telegraphy, photography, the rotary
press, the telephone, the typewriter, the phonograph, the transatlantic
cable, the electric light, movies, the locomotive, rockets, the
steamboat, the x-ray, the revolver, the computer, and the stethoscope,
not to mention canned food, the penny press, the modern magazine,
the advertising agency, the modern bureaucracy, and, for good
measure, even the safety pin.
We
continued addressing the problem of information scarcity into
the first half of the twentieth century, when we added some important
inventions so that the burdens of information scarcity were removed
once and for all. We may congratulate ourselves on our achievement,
but we have largely failed to recognize that in solving the problem
we set out to solve, we created a new problem never experienced
before: information glut, information incoherence, information
meaninglessness. From millions of sources all over the globe,
through every possible channel and medium - lightwaves, airwaves,
tickertapes, computer banks, telephone wires, television cables,
satellites, printing presses - information pours in. Behind it,
in every imaginable form of storage - on paper, video and audiotape,
on disks, film, and silicon chips - is an even greater volume
of information waiting to be retrieved.
Whereas
information was once an essential resource in helping us to gain
control over our physical and symbolic worlds, our technological
ingenuity transformed information into a form of garbage, and
ourselves into garbage collectors. Like the Sorcerer´s Apprentice,
we are awash in information without even a broom to help us get
rid of it. What has happened is that the tie between information
and human purpose has been severed. Information is now a commodity
that is bought and sold, it comes indiscriminately, whether asked
for or not, directed at no one in particular, in enormous volume,
at high speeds, disconnected from meaning and import. Which is
to say, it comes unquestioned and uncombined, and we do not have,
as the poet said, a loom to weave it all into fabric. No transcendent
narratives to provide us with moral guidance, social purpose,
intellectual economy. No stories to tell us what we need to know,
and especially what we do not need to know.
Without
such narratives, we discover that information, and still
more information, and still more of it, does not touch any of
the important problems of life. If there are children starving
in Somalia, Bosnia, or any other place, it has nothing to do with
inadequate information. If our oceans are polluted and the rain
forests depleted, it has nothing to do with inadequate information.
If crime is rampant on our streets, if children are mistreated,
if racism and sexism are a blight on our social lives, none of
this has anything to do with inadequate information. Indeed, if
we cannot get along with our own relatives, this, too, has nothing
to do with inadequate information.
What
we are facing, then, is a series of interconnected delusions,
beginning with the belief that technological innovation is the
same thing as human progress - which is linked to the delusion
that our sufferings and failures are caused by inadequate information
- which is linked, in turn, to the most serious delusion of all
- that it is possible to live without a loom to weave our lives
into fabric; that is to say, without a transcendent narrative.
I
use the word narrative as a synonym for "god", with
a small "g.," I know it is risky to do so, not only
because the word "god" having an aura of sacredness
is not to be used lightly, but also because it calls to mind a
fixed figure or image. But it is the purpose of such figures or
images to direct one´s mind to an idea and, more to my point,
to a story. Not any kind of story but one that tells of origins
and envisions a future; a story that constructs ideals, prescribes
rules of conduct, provides a source of authority, and above all,
gives a sense of continuity and purpose.
A
god, in the sense I am using the word, is the name of a great
narrative, one that has sufficient credibility, complexity, and
symbolic power so that it is possible to organize one´s life
around it. I use the word in the same sense, for example, as
did Arthur Koestler in calling his book about communism´s
deceptions and disappointments The God That Failed. His
intention was to show that communism was not merely an experiment
in government or social life, and still less an economic theory,
but a comprehensive narrative about what the world is like, how
things got to be the way they are, and what lies ahead. He also
wished to show that for all of communism´s contempt for the
narratives of traditional religions, it relied nonetheless on
faith and dogma. It certainly had its own conception of blasphemy
and heresy, and practiced a grotesque and brutal method of excommunication.
Why
did so many people believe in such a god, and now disbelieve in
it, and why, in the age of technology do they
find it so difficult to find a god that is worth serving? A god
that might give us guidance in controlling our uses of technology
and the torrent of information that threatens to turn us into
purposeless information junkies?
Well,
as you know, it has not be a good century for gods, not even a
good century and a half. Charles Darwin, we might say, began the
great assault by revealing that we were not the children of God,
with a capital G, but of monkeys. His revelation took its toll
on him; he suffered from unrelieved stomach and bowel pains for
which medical historians have failed to uncover a physical cause.
Nonetheless, Darwin was unrepentant and hoped that many people
would find inspiration, solace and continuity in the great narrative
of evolution.
But
not many have, and the psychic trauma he induced continues barely
concealed to our own day. Karl Marx, who invited Darwin to write
an Introduction to "Das Kapital " (Darwin declined),
torc to shreds the god of nationalism, showing, with theory and
countless examples, how the working classes are deluded into identifying
with their capitalist, tormentors. Sigmund Freud, working quietly
in his consulting room at Bergasse 19 in Vienna, bid to become
the world´s most ferocious god-buster. He showed that the
great god of Reason, whose authority had been certified by the
Age of Enlightenment, was a great imposter, that it served mostly
to rationalize and conceal the commands of our most primitive
urgings. The cortex, as it were, is merely the servant of Genitalia.
All
of this not being enough, Freud destroyed the story of childhood
innocence and, for good measure, tried to prove that Moses was
not a Jew (for which he apologized but did not recant) and argued
that our belief in deities was a childish and neurotic illusion.
Even the gentle Albert Einstein, though not an Einsteinian, contributed
to the general disillusionment, wreaking havoc on Isaac Newton´s
science-god; a Freudian instance, if there ever was one, of the
son slaying the father. Einstein´s revolutionary papers led
to the idea that we do not see things as they are but as we are.
The oldest axiom of survival - seeing is believing - was brought
to heel. It´s opposite - believing is seeing - turned out
to be at least as true. Moreover, Einstein´s followers have
concluded, and believe they have proved, that complete knowledge
is indeterminate.
Try
as we will, we can never know certain things. Not because
we lack intelligence, not even because we are enclosed in a prison
of protoplasm but because the universe is - well - malicious.
The
odd thing is that though they differed in temperament, each of
these men intended to provide us with a firmer and more humane
basis for our beliefs. And some day that may yet happen. Meanwhile,
humanity reels from what has been lost. God is dead, Nietzsche
said before he went insane. He may have meant gods are dead. If
he did, he was wrong. In this century, new gods have rushed in
to replace the old but most have had no staying power. For example:
the gods of communism, nazism and fascism. The first claimed to
represent the story of history itself, and so could be supposed
to serve as an inspiration until the final triumph of the proletariat.
It ended rather suddenly, shockingly and without remorse, in a
rubble of stone on the outskirts of West Berlin, leaving the proletariat
to wonder if history, like the universe, is also malicious. Hitler´s
great tale of Aryan supremacy had an even shorter run. He prophesied
that the Third Reich would last a thousand years, perhaps longer
than history itself. His story began with a huge bonfire whose
flames were meant to consume, once and for all, the narratives
of all other gods. It ended twelve years later, also in fire and
also in Berlin, the body of its god-head mutilated beyond recognition.
Of
fascism we may say it has not yet had its final hour. It lingers
here and there but hardly as a story worth telling. Where it exists
people do not believe in it; they endure it. What then
of the great narrative of liberal democracy? In America, even
that story, I am afraid to say, has lost much of its meaning and
power. When we ask ourselves now, What is there to believe in?
Why are we here? How shall we behave?, our prophets, led by the
anointed Newt Gingrich, reply, "Believe in a market economy."
Not much of an answer. Not much of a story.
Is
there then no god left to believe in? Well, of course, there is
the great narrative known as inductive science. It is a story
which exalts human reason, places criticism over faith, disdains
revelation as a source of knowledge, and, to put a spiritual cast
upon it, postulates that our purpose on Earth is to discover reliable
knowledge. The great strength of the science-god is, of course,
that it works. Its theories are demonstrable and cumulative; its
errors are correctable, its results practical. The science-god
sends people to the moon, inoculates people against disease, transports
images through vast spaces so that they can be seen in our living
rooms. It is a mighty god and, like more ancient ones, gives people
a measure of control over their lives. Some say the science-god
gives more control and more power than any other god before it.
But
in the end, it does not provide the answers most of us require.
Its story of our origins and of our end is, to say the least,
unsatisfactory. To the question, "How did it all begin?",
science answers, "Probably by an accident." To the question,
"How will it all end?" science answers, "Probably
by an accident." And to many people, the accidental life
is not worth living. Moreover, the science-god has no answer to
the question "Why are we here?" and, to the question,
"What moral instructions do you give us?", the science-god
maintains a tight-lipped silence. It places itself at the service
of both the beneficent and the cruel, and ist grand moral impartiality,
if not indifference, makes it, in the end, no god at all.
Into
the breach has come still another contender - the offspring of
the science-god - the great god of technology. This is a wondrous
and energetic story which with greater clarity than its parent,
offers us a vision of paradise. Whereas the science-god speaks
to us of both understanding and power, the technology-god speaks
only of power. It refutes the promise of the Christian god that
heaven is a posthumous reward. It offers convenience, efficiency
and prosperity here and now; and it offers its benefits to all,
the rich as well as the poor, as does the Christian god. But it
goes much further. For it does not merely give comfort to the
poor, it promises that through devotion to it the poor will become
rich. Its record of achievement - there can be no doubt - has
been formidable.
But
we know, and each day, receive confirmation of it, that this is
a false god. It is a god that speaks to us of power, not limits;
speaks to us of ownership, not stewardship; speaks to us only
of rights, not responsibilities; speaks to us of self-aggrandizement,
not humility.
Those
who are skeptical about the language and presuppositions of the
great god of technology, those who are inclined to take the name
of the technology-god in vain have been condemned as reactionary
renegades, especially when they speak of gods of a different kind.
Among those who have risked hereby was Max Frisch who remarked
that "Technology is the knack of so arranging the world that
we do not experience it." But he along with other heretics
were cast aside and made to bear the damning mark of "luddite"
all of their days. There are also those, like Aldous Huxley, who
believed that the great god of technology might be sufficiently
tamed so that its claims were more modest. He once said that if
he had rewritten Brave New World, he would have included
a sane alternative, a society in which technology were used as
though, like the Sabbath, it had been made for man, not as though
man were to be adapted and enslaved by it.
Well,
Huxley did not re-write Brave New World but, as it has
turned out, it was unnecessary. That the technology-god enslaves
and gives no profound answers in the bargain is now increasingly
well understood. Heidegger wrote of it, and Lewis Mumford, and
Jacques Ellul and Joseph Weizenbaum and Theodore Roszak and dozens
of others, so that the covenant we made with technology is each
day being shredded. We are left at last, it seems, with no loom
to weave a fabric to our lives. This is the problem Vaclev Havel
spoke of when he addressed the U.S. Congress. He said we will
need a story that will help us - and I quote - "to be people
with an elementary sense of justice, the ability to see things
as others do, a sense of transcendental responsibility, archetypal
wisdom, good taste, courage, compassion and faith."
Where
shall we find such a story? The answer, I think, is where we have
always found new tales: in the older ones we have already been
telling. We do not need to invent a story for our times out of
nothing. Since consciousness began, we have been weaving our experience
of ourselves; and every generation has passed its stories on.
And as new generations have encountered more and more of the world
and ist complexities, each generation has had to re-read the stories
of the past - not rejecting them, but revising and expanding their
meaning to accomodate the new. The great revolutions and revelations
of the human past, and I include the Christian revelation, have
all been great re-tellings, new ways of narrating ancient truths
to encompass a larger world.
We
in the West are inheritors of two great and different tales. The
more ancient, of course, is the one that starts by saying. "In
the beginning, God." And the newer is the account of the
world as science and reason give it. One is the tale of Genesis
and Job, of Mark and Paul. The other is Euclid´s tale, and
Galileo´s, Newton´s, Darwin´s. Both are great and
stirring accounts of the universe and the human struggle within
it. Both speak of human frailty and error, and of limits. Both
may be told in such a way as to invoke our sense of stewardship,
to sing of responsibility. Both contain the seeds of a narrative
more hopeful and coherent than the technology story. May I, at
this point, offer my two favorite quotes on this matter. They
were made 375 years apart. The first is by Galileo. He said, "The
intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach how one goes to heaven,
not how heaven goes." The second is by Pope John Paul II.
He said, "Science can purify religion from error and superstition.
Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes."
I
take these men to mean what I would like to say. Science and religion
will be hopeful, useful and life-giving only if we learn to read
them with new humility - as tales, as limited human renderings
of the Truth. If we continue to read them, either science or scripture,
as giving us Truth direct and final, then all their hope and promise
turn to dust. Science read as universal truth, not a human telling,
degenerates to technological enslavement and people flee it in
despair. Scripture read as universal Truth, not a human telling,
degenerates to ... to what? To Inquisition, Jihad, Holocaust - and
people flee it in despair. In either case, certainty abolishes
hope, and robs us of renewal.
I
believe we are living just now in a special moment in time - at
one of those darkening moments when all around us is change and
we cannot yet see which way to go. Our old ways of explaining
ourselves to ourselves are not large enough to accommodate a world
made paradoxically small by our technologies, yet larger than
we can grasp. We cannot go back to simpler times and simpler tales
- tales made by clans and tribes and nations when the world was
large enough for each to pursue its separate evolution. There
are no island continents in a world of electonic technologies
- no places left to hide or to withdraw from the communities of
women and men. We cannot make the world accept one tale - and
that one our own - by chanting it louder than the rest or silencing
those who are singing a different song. We must take to heart
the sage remark of Nils Bohr, one of our century´s greatest
scientists. He said, "The opposite of a correct statement
is an incorrect statement. The
opposite of a profound truth is another profound truth."
He meant to say that we require a larger reading of the human
past, of our relations with each other and the universe and God,
a retelling of our older tales to encompass many truths and to
let us grow with change. We can only make the human tale larger
by making ourselves a little smaller - by seeing that the vision
each of us is granted is but a tiny fragment of a much greater
Truth not given to mortals to know. It is the technology-god that
promises, "Yes you can ... have it all." My own limited
reading of Scripture tells me that that was never a promise made
by God - only that we should have such understanding as is sufficient
- for each one, and for a time. For people who believe that promise,
the challenge of re-telling our tale for new and changing times
is a test, not of our wisdom but of our faith.
Neil Postman