The Demonism of Technology (Repeat)

Can technology subvert our humanity and authenticity? Does technology alienate us from ourselves and from nature? Are we mere cogs in the machine of technology? Is technology an out of control demon enslaving us to a life and an end beyond our will and beyond our ken? Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) calls these dangers "The Demonism of Technology". This group exploration will examine these threats and the responsibilities that we may have to assert to preserve our freedom and our humanity.

According to Peter-Paul Verbeek of the University of Twente in his course Philosophy of Technology ( https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/philosophy-of-technology ), Karl Jaspers' book "Man in the Modern Age" (1931) warns that technology transforms "human society into a mass, mechanized culture" which he called "The Apparatus". Does The Apparatus threaten our authentic humanness?

According to Verbeek, in Jasper's book "The Origin and Goal of History" (1949), he argued that "technology is neutral and needs guidance": it is simply a means for human purposes. Therefore, humans are responsible to guide technology to ensure it enhances our humanity and enables our authentic being instead of letting it enslave us in The Apparatus. Is this our necessary responsibility?

How can we assert our responsibility over technology to ensure it is humanizing, fosters our authenticity and freedom, connects us to our souls, our humanity, and to nature?

"The upshot of technical advances as far as everyday life is concerned has been that there is a trustworthy supply of necessaries, but in a way which makes us take less pleasure in them, because they come to us as a matter of course instead of with the relish given by a sense of positive fulfillment. Being more materials obtainable at a moment's notice in exchange for money, they lack the aroma of that which is produced by personal effort. Articles of consumption are supplied in the mass and are used up, their refuse being thrown away; they are readily interchangeable, one specimen being as good as another. In manufactured articles turned out in large quantities, no attempt is made to achieve a unique and precious quality, to produce something whose individuality makes it transcend fashion, something that will be carefully cherished." — Jaspers, 1951 translation of "Man in the Modern Age", pp. 47-48.

Does mass automation of production and mass consumption of throw-aways dehumanize us and cause us to lose our authentic connection to the world? Have we lost the preciousness of uniquely crafted delights in an age of automation? Are we little more than spectators who vote with our pocketbooks on the transient fashions of The Apparatus?

Hannah Arendt in her 1958 book "The Human Condition" distinguishes between tools and machines: "Unlike the tools of workmanship, which at every given moment in the work process remain the servants of the hand, the machines demand that the laborer serve them ... Even the most primitive machines guides the body's labor and eventually replaces it altogether" (p. 147).

This context informs her interpretation of "the whole problem of technology" on page 151: "the transformation of life and world through the introduction of the machines ... the instrumentality of tools and implements is much more closely related to the object it is designed to produce, and their sheer ``human value'' is restricted to the use the animal laborans [labor of the body in contrast to the work of the hands, p. 80] makes of them. In other words, homo faber, the toolmaker, invented tools and implements in order to erect a world, not—at least, not primarily—to help the human life process. The question therefore is not so much whether we are the masters or the slaves of our machines, but whether machines still serve the world and its things, or if, on the contrary, they and the automatic motion of their processes have begun to rule and even destroy world and things."

Can technology, its things and its automations, rule and/or destroy world and things? Can technology, on the contrary, serve the world? Do we have a responsibility to ensure that technology serves the world and its things?

On pages 96-125 of Jasper's book "The Origin and Goal of History", he provides an in-depth assessment of our Technological Age. "Technology is the procedure by which scientific man masters nature for the purpose of moulding his existence, delivering himself from want, and giving his environment the form that appeals to him. ... Technology has wrought a radical transformation in the day-by-day existence of man in his environment; it has forced his mode of work and his society into entirely new channels: the channels of mass-production, the metamorphosis of his whole existence into a technically perfect piece of machinery and of the planet into a single great factory. In the process man has been and is being deprived of all roots. He is becoming a dweller on the earth with no home. He is losing the continuity of tradition. The spirit is being reduced to the learning of facts and training for utilitarian functions." (p. 98)

Has modern technology thus impoverished the human spirit? Is technology why there is spreading a "lack of happiness in this world that is becoming ever more inhuman"?

On p. 98-99, Jaspers continues "Hence the individual is either overcome by a profound dissatisfaction with himself, or he delivers himself up in self-oblivion to become a functional component of the machine, to abandon himself unthinking to his vital existence, which has become impersonal, to lose the horizon of past and future and shrink into a narrow present, untrue to himself, barterable and available for any purpose asked of him, under the evil spell of unquestioned, untested, static, undialectic and easily interchangeable pseudocertainties."

How can we guard against these dangers of the demonism of technology?

On p. 125, Jaspers continues "Technology is defined as operation with the substances and force of nature for the purpose of producing useful objects and effects. ... Technology is only a means, in itself it is neither good nor evil. Everything depends upon what man makes of it, for what purpose it serves him, under what conditions he places it. ... Technology is independent of what can be done with it; as an autonomous entity it is an empty power, in the last resort a paralysing triumph of the means over the end."

Is technology instrumentalist, just a means to ends?

On p. 122, Jaspers writes "There are no demons. The word refers rather to something created by man and yet unwilled; something coercive, which has consequences for the whole of existence".

What is the nature of the Demonism of Technology?

On p. 124, Jaspers writes "Technology is in the process of transforming man himself, along with his whole working existence. Man can no longer extricate himself from the technology to which he himself gave birth. ... technology brings not only incalculable opportunities, but also incalculable perils. Technology has become an independent, impetuous force. ... Yet the demonism of technology is only to be vanquished by following the road that leads to our penetration of it. Whatever mischief it gives rise to may perhaps be within our power to master."

Can we master and control the Demonism of Technology? Why or why not? If yes, how can we penetrate deeply enough to understand our humanity and technology well enough to control this "demon"?

In his 1958 book "The Future of Mankind" on pp. 179-180, Jaspers critiques techo-utopianism: "Vast quantities of power would be at the disposal of automatic machinery supplying all human needs with a minimum of labor. ... Life would not be fulfilled in work but in leisure. ... Thus far, however, the results of technological progress have been rather different. Many came to feel indignation and rage at a liberation that actually chained them to new, unfamiliar, time-consuming work, that destroyed the traditional ways of work and of life, that brought unforeseen, undreamed-of evil into the world. ... No one can be relieved of the responsibility for what becomes of him, what each one makes of himself. Freedom must be consummated by spontaneity in the individual."

Is the allure of techno-utopianism a phantom? Has it instead brought "undreamed-of evil into the world"? Like nuclear weapons, computer viruses and warfare, and death by automobile? Is the "spontaneity in the individual" at odds with technological automation?

On p. 194, Jaspers asks "Is man's new ability to destroy all life on earth merely the last phase of a technological process that has always been essentially destructive, anyway? Or has this process always been the premise of the unfoldment of human potentialities, so that only the dangers attached to it at all times have now reached their peak?"

Jaspers concludes "Technology as such is by no means a process of total destruction. It gives man both chances. ... He can win technological mastery over natural forces, so he ought to do so—for this provides him with a steadily widening foundation of new potentialities. The technology he has produced does not threaten him as such; it is he who threatens himself with it. The situations it confronts him with are challenges for him. To cope with them, he must change. He will either change or he is unworthy of life and will, against his will, destroy himself by his technology."

Is it this demonism of technology that by its prospect of total destructiveness obliges each of us to accept our responsibility to act wisely to preserve our freedom and our humanity? Can this sense of responsibility give us sovereignty over technology?

Is the demonism of technology, therefore, intrinsic to technology or a function of our responsibility?

Must we take responsibility to ensure that technology will "allow humans to experience the Earth as one whole for which they can feel responsible"? (As Verbeek puts it in his course).

Optional 5 minute video resource: Peter-Paul Verbeek introduction and critical appraisal of Karl Jaspers' philosophy of technology: https://view.vzaar.com/10211406/video

This is a repeat of the event held on Sunday September 30th. If you attended that event https://www.meetup.com/thinkingsociety/events/253657014 , please do not RSVP before November 7th to give people who missed the first one a chance to attend.