I volunteer at the Miller-Cory House Historical Museum. We have fun dressing up as colonial people and giving programs about the Revolutionary era. Since I am fascinated by science, last year I offered a program on technological and scientific developments during the colonial effort. When I explored this, I was amazed at how much technology and science was being done. It is the age of the bifocals (which many of us still wear), the Franklin stove, and the Jefferson desk. Ordinary Colonials had all sorts of labor-saving and safety features in their homes. In the Miller-Cory House we can show a cast-iron swing out contraption in the fireplace. The fireplace was where the cooking was done. This contraption allowed the cooks to hang their heavy hot pots and swing them away from the fire without catching fire themselves (a very great hazard in that day of open fires and long skirts). There are also apple corers, looms, and of course the Flintlock. Colonial Americans were pragmatic people. They wanted hardship no more than we do and were willing and interested in any technology that could improve their lives. One big improvement during the war was smallpox inoculations. Smallpox was devastating the American (and British) Armies. Washington ordered all of his soldiers to be inoculated. I don't know what the British and Hessians did.
Americans have always been fascinated and accepting of technology. We are a pragmatic and inventive people. These two attributes together have given rise to a deeply technological society. We are also by and large an unreflective people. We don't dwell very much on the social or spiritual implications of a technological innovation. If it is possible, we do it. If it is done, we take advantage of it and deal with the consequences as they arise -- often with a technological solution. This approach has resulted in a tremendous amount of power being bequeathed to us and the world via ever-accelerating technological products.
Consider how far we have come in just one hundred years (since 1903): because of the advent of the automobile and the airplane, we are no longer a rural people, but a suburban people. No longer do we live generation after generation in the same locale. We move around -- a lot. Even the urban experience is radically changed. A hundred years ago people were also "stuck" in the urban slums but trapped in grinding factories. Now, with the shift to the suburbs, people are "stuck" in the cities often without work or still low-paying work -- but no longer isolated. Via the technology of television, cablevision, wireless telephony and the Internet, they are exposed to the rest of the world -- though often unable to partake of it. Along with our convenient (believe it or not -- compared to any other era!) global transportation, telecommunications and data communications has unified the world into a global village. And a hundred years ago people died of the flu, chicken pox, and measles. When medical technology reaches them, only rarely do people today die of these once dreaded diseases. In technological advanced societies, the infant mortality rate is less and less. We live longer because of medical innovation. We've been to the moon and Mars is within reach. All of this in a historically short time. And all of this technology represents enormous power in the hands of governments and individuals.
Of course, the symbol for this power is the atomic mushroom. Possessors of such technology have at their fingertips, the power to annihilate the world. But there is other power available. The power of knowledge has arisen as one of the basic sources of "wealth": those who have knowledge or access to it have enormous advantage over those who do not. Access to knowledge has been democratized by the Internet and those who are "hooked in" have enormous wealth and, therefore power, at their fingertips. Technology has also magnified our power to influence. Via the mass media and the endless production of consumer goods (all based on technology: new PCs, new autos, new perfumes, new clothes, etc.), we have influence all over the globe. In no other age, have one people had so much power -- virtually cosmic in scope -- for good or bad, for well- being or selfishness, for hope or despair.
Along with this enormous power comes enormous responsibility -- a responsibility we have been less concerned with. The creation is a gift from God. We are a gift from God. So is technology and science. We are called by God to be good stewards of this wonderful gift. What, then, does God want us to do with this? I mentioned before that we Americans tend to be unreflective. This attribute becomes a burden -- a terrible burden when we are faced with terrible power and the concomitant responsibility. Indeed, where God has given us the gift of technology -- the child of our God-given creativity and of God's creation, we have used it, in general unintentionally, to erect a technolatry: a society based on the demands of technology, rather than on the love and grace of God. We have erected an idolatrous society. Do you have eyes to see this technolatry? Let me help you ...
The power of technology is not just a collection of inventions. It is a way of living and perceiving life. It demands its own sort of infrastructure of bureaucrats and supporters. It influences every aspect of life. No one on earth is untouched by this: from the roar of the jet over a jungle to the densely populated and technologically drenched Northeast of the USA, everyone is touched by technology. It is not only ubiquitous, but its claims are total: it is the height of human achievement; it is the only reliable (i.e., true) source of human welfare (as its parent science is the only true source of knowledge); it is the bedrock and guarantor of utopia. It is the ultimate source of our security. If you had to choose between either having faith in God or in science to heal (and you could not choose both), which would you choose? If you look back on the past, why are we so much better off? Underlying this totalitarianism is the technological principle: if it can be done, do it; if it can be thought of, figure out how to do it. Is this what God wants us to do with the gift of technology?
Further, the technolatry is void of moral or ethical content. It has no intrinsic ethic other than the technological imperative. It inherits this absence from the scientific method. This method has been amazingly efficacious. It relies on objectivity (such as it is), data, and repeatability. It does not deal with anything that it cannot measure, detect with an instrument, or define mathematically. Because of our idolatry of technology, we have intrinsically adopted the attributes of this method inappropriately. The technolatry prides itself on objectivity (i.e., rationalism) and information (note all the data we collect on every social and political problem). In our diverse society, we needed to reach a harmony of sorts. But rather than look for common ethical ground, we unreflectively adopted the technological ethic of imperative invention. This is not to say that we as individuals and we as faith communities do not stand on ethical ground. We often do. But it is over and against the social norm presented to us by the technolatry.
Haunting the technolatry is a dark shadow creeping into our technological utopia. It is the shadow of our falleness, our limitedness, our rebellion against God. By leaving God out of the equation (which we inevitably do when we do not as a society reflect on what we have wrought), harmful and dangerous effects, just as powerful as the good effects, arise. Society is bifurcated no longer just along the chasm of rich vs. poor, but now along the chasm of the technical haves and have-nots. Much of our technological utopia is denied to others. They are exposed to it in any number of ways via the mass media and via political and social arrangements, but acquiring it is often out of their reach. But even when its denied to them, they see their traditional culture being overwhelmed by it and undermined by it as they try to catch up to the West to reap its benefits. Its promises are constantly be held out and constantly out of reach for a vast number of humans. This has created a harmful need to "catch up" with us no matter the cost and/or a dangerous counterreaction of nihilism seeking to destroy the technolatry no matter the cost. More subtle is a chasm of the technical capable and incapable. Any number of folks are simply overwhelmed by the confusion, complexity, and constant change wrought by relentless newness and upgrades. They simply opt out and are left behind (not raptured?) to suffer through a world so strange, mechanical and soulless that they are radically alienated from it.
Another consequence is rampant consumerism. The technological imperative has given birth to more and more variety of consumer goods. A mark of the technolatry is the availability of an endless flow of new things to buy. In order to profit from this, the captains of the economy must instill in us a sense of never having enough and of self-worth based on possessing. Our economic lives are significantly driven by the technology of consumerism and should technology fail in its mission of producing new things, the economic consequences will indeed be dire.
Further, in a world where technology is accepted uncritically, there are frightening results. We see technology as our salvation. So we turn to it to save us from all sorts of things: poverty, ill-health, and now terrorism. Today, biometric identification is rapidly becoming a reality where not only our fingerprints, but our faces, our eyes and our DNA will be used to identify us. Our electronic and photonic infrastructure of information and communication is a treasure trove of information about us. All of which can be -- and is planned to be -- mined by the authorities so they can track supposed terrorists. This will also give them the capability of tracking any of us. Will we notice the extension of this beyond terrorists before its too late? Warfare is being rapidly upgraded with so-called conventional bombs as powerful as small atomic bombs. Network centric warfare is now a reality where the Internet goes to war (for us, not the enemy). And of course WMD is only possibly through technology.
Much of these technologies seem distant to us either because they are abstract or happen to someone else. The medical field is different. We are all touched by that and so many of us are aware of technological innovations that make us uneasy: cloning, genetic engineering, and stem-cell research. Interestingly, there is a possible model here for what we might do to become reflective. There are a number of bioethics committees of medical researchers, ethicists, clergy and lay folks that reflect on these discoveries and recommend appropriate actions. These are the seed of a possible reflection paradigm.
But are we listening to God? Can we sort out the good from the bad and raise up the good and resist the bad? The metaphor of Tolkien's ring from his epic the Lord of Rings can help us. In that story, the ring is evil, pure and simple. It is therefore important to emphasize that the ring is NOT a metaphor for technology. Technology can be used for good or for evil. But I submit that the ring is a metaphor for the technolatry and we are called to find a way to accept the gift of technology without technolatry. Evil has two faces: internal and external. Internally, evil is the result of our sin, i.e., our alienation from God. Like Tolkien's ring, abused technology amplifies our sin. The horrific attack on the World Trade Center is now a classic example of the sin of a group of nihilists being amplified to devastating effect. Externally, evil seems to have a life of its own, just as the ring seems to be sentient with power and urges of its own. Perfectly good people in every other situation will do evil things under given circumstances. Nazi Germany is a classic case of good people being blind to the evil around them and the evil in which they participated. Abused technology allows extrinsic evil an amplified power: governments resorting to atomic bombs and netted warfare to secure liberty and peace.
Gandalf makes these assertions about the ring: It is immensely powerful in the right or the wrong hands. It devours or possesses its owners turning them to evil. It cannot be left unused; it must be destroyed. Similarly, as we have seen the technolatry is powerful intrinsically; it is morally neutral and gives power no matter the intent. Further, technolatry ultimately will devour us, for like the ring it is addictive: we are afraid of slowing down. We fear that "others" will over take us technologically and thereby overpower us. We fear we will not realize the better life if we slow down. But as a result, we condemn ourselves to an everlasting spiral of technological impacts. We have been unreflective and have allowed the technolatry to evolve organically: we cannot just reduce it or diminish it by benign neglect. If we do not step up to it, it will continue to increase.
What are we to do then? One place to look is at what a number of Moslem scholars who study the interaction of Islam and science/technology have suggested. First, God is intimately part of the scientific endeavor. Our values enter into the scientific endeavor: what we study; how we interpret the findings; and how we use it. Knowledge, technology, and material gain are not the appropriate teleos of the endeavor. Rather intimacy with God is. The teleos of science and technology should be to seek God and God's will. Further creation points to God and is a gift of God, thus; the Cosmos provides signs of God's will and love. Reality includes the materialistic creation (the subject of science), AND the transcendental which should also critique and frame our efforts; that is, nature has MEANING. Secondly, the Creation is one, united; the whole is greater than the parts; all things are interrelated. We all, human and non-human, are children of God. Thirdly, God sustains the Creation and the Creation is good. Fourthly, science and technology must be use in the service of God to sustain the basic needs of individuals and society; to encourage the spiritual needs of individuals and society; to promote shalom/salaam; and to support (not undermine) personhood.
In the Book of Revelation in the New Testament is the image of the triumph of the slain Lamb who stands. This vivid image is set over and against the triumph of the lion: the Lamb triumphs not by aggressive warfare but by sacrificial service. This is an image Christians need to take to heart (just as I'm sure other faith traditions have similar challenging images) when faced with an idolatry so embedded in our world that we are blind to it. The image of the slain Lamb who stands -- murdered but alive -- requires of us to call the world to account with nonretaliatory love that refuses to get caught up in the vicious cycle of evil begetting evil. Evil is never to be resisted in kind; it is to be resisted by love and love alone. If the image of the Lamb is too distant for our American way of life (we don't sacrifice lambs and we typically don't eat them), replace it with the triumphant Dove. What either image calls us to is to smash the idol of technolatry, NOT technology or science. I am NOT a luddite. It bears repeating that technology and science are gifts from God and it is just as abusive not to use them for God as it is to use them for evil. We need to reclaim technology for the will of God. We need to re-center technology's teleos from consumerism and defense to being God-centered: uplifting the welfare of all individuals and communities with integrity; promoting reconciliation; and seeking out God's reflection in the good creation. From the beginning of our days here in America, we have been an inventive and creative people. We are problem-solvers. We can see that in our founders’ inventiveness, both scientifically and politically. We need to once again invoke that wonderful, God-given inventiveness and use it to reclaim this gift for God.
What does this mean practically? It means first and foremost revealing the technolatry. This requires us to understand AND appreciate on-going scientific discoveries and technological developments sufficiently to uncover the ethical and moral issues and address them cogently. It means for us to engage in the prophetic endeavor and thus speak out about this idolatry. How many citizens know what a software engineer does? How many even know that they exist? Yet our lives are significantly effected by their work. This invisibility isolates the "back office" workers from the "users". Healing this alienation is one step towards reforming our use of technology. It also means a willingness to SLOW DOWN and reflect on what is happening. Often when a development occurs, such as cloning, that is so challenging that it blasts through our blindness, we react rather than reflect and engage in bitter debates and end up banning a process or exhausting ourselves until we just ignore it. Both reactions are not centered on God. God calls us to reflection: slow down, reflect on it as a community, being willing to engage its newness and not run from it, asking what is God's intent for this new discovery; and then make a decision about it always recognizing that the decision is contingent and may change in the future. And it means keeping all of this in mind when we vote. More than any previous time, we as individuals have responsibility for what we have erected here. We are blessed with a democracy that our Colonial ancestors founded and we have nurtured. But it is also a mighty responsibility. We cannot ignore these issues on the basis that we are powerless to do anything. We are not powerless. God endows us with the power of righteousness and our social order endows us with the power of the vote.
God has laid a great bounty at our feet. The Divine gift of creativity, our free will, and the good creation has open a wonder garden of delight and hope. We must no longer take for granted what we have wrought with God's help. We need to face what we have done, that it has alienated many communities (particularly Moslem communities), and be courageous enough to change our way of living.
God's shalom/salaam ...
© 2003 John A. Mills