It’s Technology Stupid
Technology is one of the key defining characteristics of us humans. All the way back to primitive weapons and tools and even musical instruments and art, we have been almost utterly dependent upon our ingenuity and ability to create and use technology.
The simple ability to daub pictures on a cave wall gave us the means to communicate abstract ideas amongst others and to persist those ideas across generations. That early technology based on crude dyes and brushes led eventually to mass printing, then telecommunications and now the vast complex of zeroes and ones that has put this very information before you today.
Without our technology we are in many ways quite naked and remarkably frail compared to most other creatures, yet with it we have assumed mastery of the planet. Which is where the problems start. It’s easy to argue that human technology is the root of all that ails the world today; there’s a lot of evidence pointing that way. But the answer is not to somehow do away with modern technology and rediscover some bygone Golden Age.
There never was any such Golden Age and it’s unlikely there ever will be. Anyone protesting against dumping garbage in landfill sites or flushing treated sewage out to sea, for example, really ought to consider what used to happen to the rubbish and shit before we did such things. No, it’s still not “right” but it beats scratching out a brief and miserable existence, ankle deep in piss and poo, before the inevitable terminal encounter with Cholera, or Typhus, or Plague.
Yes, technology helped create the mess we now face, but technology is also our only realistic hope of cleaning things up and moving forward to a better world. We have no other choice – without technology we are nothing and can achieve nothing.
Technology defines us, it’s an expression of what we are – the nerdy dorks of the animal kingdom, compelled to use our clever brains to compensate for a woeful lack of brawn. It also helps bind us together in so many ways.
Technology that allows us to travel distances once only migratory birds could dream of; technology that supports our society and allows the separation of labour; but above all, technology that enables us to communicate ever more widely and easily.
Yes, we are all individuals; but as groups, societies, civilizations, we achieve unimaginably more than any one person could ever hope for. In order for this to work, we each have to make our own contribution to the best of our abilities (which are thankfully incredibly diverse).
Yet the reward we each gain not only far exceeds the effort, but is leveraged such that the more you give, the more you get back. You can easily test this principle by heading off to live all by yourself – all yours, nobody else you need to help out, or who might want a share of whatever is yours. See how comfortable and rewarding that feels – no, you can’t switch on the telly (other folk’s work) or open a beer (likewise) or even read a book (except any you might have written yourself of course).
Interesting? – Who Needs It?
So, strange then that technology should take center stage whenever the moving finger stops in the blame game. Or that the very thing that enables modern society to function should become an instrument for promoting introspection and selfishness.
I’m sure you’re familiar with the ancient Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times”. How about chronic energy crises, uncertainty about the climate, massive imbalances in population / age / gender, food shortages, escalation of conflicts and a myriad other challenges that are clamouring at the gates already. Throw technology and political and cultural upheaval into the mix and it’s probably never been more “interesting”.
So where do you and I fit into all this? This brave new world that has such troubles in it. A world of threats and calamities, yet undreamed of possibilities and opportunities.
Well, times they may be a changing, but people fundamentally don’t. Our most elemental desires remain; same as they ever were. People always have and do still seek to improve themselves, their surroundings, their prospects for the future. That’s what life itself is about. A constant quest to survive, adapt, improve.
These days our core needs increasingly find expression in various forms of self-help, self-awareness, self-fulfillment. The word “self” says it all, for commendable as it is to strive to make the best of oneself, to invest in personal growth, the fact is that mainstream Personal Development has long teetered on the edge of sterile self-obsession, with little or nothing to say about the wider world and your or my place in it.
On the other hand, those who survey the major issues of our time, presuming to know who is to blame and what is to be done, invariably miss the point that these are not issues for the world as such. They are caused by and affect people – billions of individual people just like you and me, trying only to squeeze what they can from an all too brief moment of life.
The Writing’s (Always) On The Wall
So one has to ask, what’s the point of it all if the world has either left your perfectly developed ass in the dust or alternatively gone to hell in a handcart? Equally where’s the purpose in being well informed and worldly but closed to yourself, your place in this world and your full potential?
The interesting times in which we find ourselves are entirely a product of the human condition. A mass expression of the basic desires each and every person shares. Politicians who devise policies and launch initiatives to tackle “the problem” just don’t get it – we are the problem.
Cast your eyes around. Few if any of the major issues of our time have crept up undetected. Anyone who didn’t foresee the current energy “shock” at least a decade ago was either not looking or not thinking. The writing was on the wall way back when, and now there is fresh writing on the wall, foretelling the things that will “interest” us in the years ahead.
Even though much that masquerades as information is wrong, stupid or serving someone’s agenda (and frequently all three) it is not difficult these days to form an intelligent perspective on world affairs. Nor does it require superhuman powers to cut through the banal platitudes and pernicious twaddle (Law of Attraction anyone?) that long ago became common currency in the field of introspection.
Your Own Special Song
So, do you want to:
- Find love?
- Earn more money?
- Develop as a person?
- Do the best for your children?
- Make the most of your time in the world?
- Spend more time doing the things you most enjoy?
- Leave this world in some small way a better place for your part in it?
Guess what? You’re not alone. As John Donne famously observed: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main”. John Donne knew a thing or two.
I’m not even vaguely suggesting I have any answers to any of the above. But I do know that for the most part we all share these same basic desires; that far better people than those who inhabit the self-help industry have given them serious consideration; and that they underpin not just each person’s own little narrative but the whole human story.
So why dance to the Charlatans’ Waltz? Use your intelligence. As Cass Elliot so wonderfully put it, make your own kind of music, sing your own special song.
Because when it comes down to it, all each of us really have is our world and our time upon it.
