Technophobia

The sense of anxiety created by technological advances is not a new phenomenon. For years, it has been repeatedly argued that technological solutions are more or less directly linked to such phenomena as the devastation of the environment, man’s detachment from nature, his solitude, the destruction of his personality, etc. It is fair to ask how it is possible that the tools we have, after all, created ourselves, have such a great – and devastating – impact on us?

The issue also continues to puzzle philosophers. The situation, in which we are ultimately shaped by tools created by human hands, was pointed out by, among others. Marshall MacLuhan. German thinker Martin Heidegger argued that technology (and technology) has its greatest impact on us when we remain convinced of its neutrality. In contrast, for example. Lewis Mumford wrote about “authoritarian technology,” that is, technology that, while remaining in the service of power, serves to organize and manage the human masses. As can be seen from this, technology has more than once been put down by thinkers. However.

Do such grim diagnoses prevail in philosophical reflection?

We decided to ask Dr. Marcin Rychter of the UW Department of Philosophy about the approach of contemporary philosophers to technological development:

First of all, it is important to remember that philosophy is not a science. It has no uniform methodology or any, even minimal, corpus of truths or claims that are considered “objective” or universally accepted. The history of philosophy, from its Greek beginnings to recent times, is a history of feuds and disputes. Can any “prevailing” voice be heard in this radical polyphony – or perhaps even cacophony? It’s hard to say, because it’s impossible to listen to all the bickering and pushing at once. We will hear different things, depending on where we put our ear.

Purely logically, of course, three positions are possible: technophobia, technophilia and technophilism. And all three of these positions – in various versions and configurations – have indeed been and are represented in philosophy. Technology is often advocated by thinkers preaching the ideals of the Enlightenment. For them, technology is simply a natural consequence of rationality. It is instrumental reason (as opposed to purely theoretical reason) and is a key driver of the human species’ progress toward a better future. But even here, however, there are notable exceptions, because, for example, John Jacques Rousseau was already highly critical of technology at the dawn of the Enlightenment, claiming that working in a mechanized manufactory dehumanizes the worker, and that the increasing specialization of science associated with technological progress makes people lose the ability to relate to the world as a whole and to understand their own place in it.

John Jacques Rousseau

Rousseau was one of the first to recognize the sinister, alienating potential in technology – he believed that it separates us from our fellows, from the world, and, in a way, from ourselves. This criticism was later echoed in the work of Marx, who by technique also understood primarily manufactures. Marx argued that the continuous development of factories contributes to the widening gap between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat and therefore results in increasing oppression of the working class. In his philosophy, however, technology played a deeply ambivalent role, because, first, by worsening the living conditions of the proletariat, it hastened the revolution and thus the ultimate liberation of the oppressed, and second, in the post-revolutionary happy state of communism, machine technology, already working virtually without human supervision, was supposed to allow, as Marx wrote, the worker to fish in the morning and practice criticism in the evening.

Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger also had an ambivalent attitude toward technology, although he was a thinker different from Marx in probably every respect. Technology and technical manipulation of reality are, in his view, a natural consequence of the development of European metaphysics. The crux of this process is the objectification of existence itself as such. Technical progress makes us lose sight of what really exists, because everything around us begins to be an object, that is, the very product of a technical procedure calculated to extract energy from the world. There is no longer a forest, there is a firewood resource, there is no river, there is a hydroelectric dam. There are no animals, there is mass production of meat. There is no world, there is a “world-image.” According to Heidegger, it is indeed the case that it is we ourselves who remain in the power of the tools we have built, and not the other way around, we are “attached” to them. From here it is impossible to deny this diagnosis of foresight in times of environmental catastrophe, virtual reality and manipulation of the human genome. Heidegger’s thought is being revisited today, moreover, by philosophers who take up ecological themes, in Poland this is done, for example, by Magdalena Hoły-Łuczaj. However, in the essay The Question of Technology, Heidegger also writes that, while being the greatest threat, it is also the greatest hope, because it reveals the essence of our epoch and allows us to rethink it thoroughly, which in turn can set the wheel of history in motion anew and help us finally say goodbye to this epoch.

Philosophical discourse

However, there is also no shortage of philosophers who are unambiguously sympathetic or even enthusiastic about technology. For many, the aforementioned Enlightenment argument that technology is a prerequisite for humanity’s progressive prosperity is still alive. Others have argued that it expands the human capacity to experience, learn about and enjoy the world. McLuhan, for example, who by technology meant primarily media, believed that they were extensions of the human senses, and far more perfect than biological prototypes. Feminist and posthumanist Rosi Braidotti, on the other hand, saw emancipatory potential in technology. Various kinds of technological implants and interventions, she says, are supposed to make it possible to experiment with “new ways of becoming a woman,” and the new female subjects thus produced are supposed to experience the world more intensely, and be freer and more creative.

Contemporary German cultural philosopher Harry Lehmann also sees technology as having liberating potential. Examining the transformations that culture undergoes in the process of migration to the online medium, using contemporary music as an example, he concludes that a democratization of the hitherto strongly elitist world of new music is taking place thanks to it. Thanks to a variety of relatively simple devices and audio editing software available on the web, virtually anyone can today become a composer and find listeners, no longer needing the institutional and financial support that only a handful of privileged and established artists could count on.

The third category of philosophers includes those who believe that technology as such is neither bad nor good. For example, according to Bruno Latour, inventions and technologies of all kinds are “actants” or “actors” that create complex networks of relationships with other entities. We can only evaluate these networks, their broader contexts and implications, not their individual components. This also applies to lethal devices – after all, the same tank can be used both by a bandit aggressor and by heroic soldiers defending their homeland.

Glossary:
Technophobia – fear of technology and engineering

Technophilia – strong enthusiasm for technology

Technoindifferentism – an attitude indifferent to technology and its achievements

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