Since we were talking about money and technology, I thought this paragraph from The Apostle of Common Sense was appropriate.
It is worth repeating, since we so seldom hear it, that it is possible to be happy without being rich. Happiness can indeed be a hard taskmaster. It tells us not to get entangled with many things. And one of the things with which we have most entangled ourselves is technology. Chesterton says that machines are neither good nor bad, but he does say that beocming dependent on machines can be bad. The point about machines is that we have to be as free not to use them as to use them. Depending on them for our happiness means giving machines the power to make us miserable, which of course they do, as anyone who owns a computer knows." Dale Ahlquist
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Yes, indeed... I shall take up this discussion on a future Thursday.
ReplyDeleteBut for the present, I might just point out this excerpt, which demonstrates (unlike some companies I could name!) GKC's real understanding of Juvenal's warning about "Who's watching the Watchers?":
It may be easier to get chocolate for nothing out of a shopkeeper than out of an automatic machine. But if you did manage to steal the chocolate, the automatic machine would be much less likely to run after you.
[GKC The Ball and the Cross]
But, speaking as a computer scientist, the NUMBER ONE funniest line in all of GKC is this:
"I often stare at windows."
[GKC, "The Crime of Gabriel Gale" in The Poet and the Lunatics]
Me too... I use the Roman Catholic "Stained Glass" edition for the Chi Rho (XP) Operating System. Hee hee.
You've left out the important part:
ReplyDelete19. The development of industry and of the various sectors connected with it, even the most modern electronics technology, especially in the fields of miniaturization, communications and telecommunications and so forth, show how vast is the role of technology, that ally of work that human thought has produced, in the interaction between the subject and object of work (in the widest sense of the word). Understood in this case not as a capacity or aptitude for work, but rather as a whole set of instruments which man uses in his work, technology is undoubtedly man's ally. It facilitates his work, perfects, accelerates and augments it. It leads to an increase in the quantity of things produced by work, and in many cases improves their quality. However, it is also a fact that, in some instances, technology can cease to be man's ally and become almost his enemy, as when the mechanization of work "supplants" him, taking away all personal satisfaction and the incentive to creativity and responsibility, when it deprives many workers of their previous employment, or when, through exalting the machine, it reduces man to the status of its slave. [Laborem Exercens 19. Emphasis added.]
Ah, here we see the value of the entire quote, don't we.
ReplyDeleteI’ll wait for Dr. Thursday’s analysis, but it seems to me that in general people who understand technology are quite scared of it. Especially as it is growing out of proportion, it becomes uncontrollable and scarry. Many people, like many of the original Distributists, like Penty are quite cynical about it. I do believe in Murphy’s Laws like:
ReplyDelete“If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.”
(Like the woodpeckesr that damaged the shuttle some time ago?)
But my favorite is:
“To err is human, but to really mess things up you need a computer.”
Wild Goose
P.S.
Not unlike Tom, I also lost 2 posts to this blog yesterday. That proves my point - technology is beyond infallible. The more complex it gets, more buggy it is. And it also explains why there are more and more frustrated programmers, resulting in less and less programmers overall who are willing to put up with the buggy reality of the monopolized computer technology.
A cosmos one day being rebuked by a pessimist replied, "How can you who revile me consent to speak by my machinery? Permit me to reduce you to nothingness and then we will discuss the matter." Moral. You should not look a gift universe in the mouth.
ReplyDelete(written by Chesterton)
Wild Goose:
ReplyDeleteOccasionally, the management (meaning me) might find reason to reduce comments made by others to the cyber recycling bin if the comments either a) don't come to a point, or b) come to a point which is unrelated to the original post or c) seems to negate or minimize the point of the post or d) are just innappropriate.
This is that which happened recently on this blog.
If you'd like to know why these things might happen, you can cease to be anonymous and allow contact in a less public way.
Another option is to obtain your own newspaper (or blog as the case may be) and begin to publish your thoughts as you will. Publishing here is mostly open, but still subject to the local law enforcement...ah I mean...editorial staff...
All comments are welcome, but subject to being edited.
Anon: good point. It is difficult to take criticisms of the technology seriously when we are using technology to criticize technology. We must at the very least acknowledge that the technology is affording us the chance to share these thoughts and communicate with each other, which is good. And the use ot said technology is up to us. Technology isn't good or bad, it is neutral. It is how we use or abuse it which determines if it works for good or bad, and then the fault is a human fault. Chesterton said we are learning to do a great many things...next we must learn how NOT to do them. In other words, control ourselves.
ReplyDeleteHello Mrs B.
ReplyDeleteNo problem trashing the chain email I posted, if you mean that. (Although I still think a Chesterton chain email letter would be a great idea - world-wide advertizing for free ?!? :-)
I am talking about two other short posts, totally to the point and nothing objectionable. They simply vanished (like Tom was complaining about earlier, that some of his posts disappeared) or were never saved properly. I really think it is some sort of computer bug of the blogging software.
Wild Goose
Hi Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteYou are confusing the issues. Nobody is objecting to the cosmos, which is a wonderfully designed creation of God. As Leibniz said “God assuredly always chooses the best” and he has created the “best of the possible worlds.”
see -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz
What I am objecting to is an impferfect ‘design’ (or rather a perversion) of what one could call the “best possible human design.” Technology can be good, but it can be also evil and dark (all the mass killing technology aimed at innocent civilians, etc.) Another interesting factoid - It has been estimated that most of the technology we use and enjoy has been, in fact, designed for some warfare or military purpose.
But, even if one considers technology a “neutral” thing, and a question remains open whether technology can be a completely neutral thing, (for example considering that Zyklon B may be eventually used for some good purposes, see history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zyklon_B), the question of greed and profit still remains. Do we just design and write “quick & dirty” technology & software full of bugs and holes to make a quick buck, or do we try to put in measures which try to anticipate possible problems and make a piece of technology a safe and reliable thing? In most cases this “quick&dirty” approach may mean just frustrations & inconvenience, although if we have too much of it, we may completely ignore such technology. But, it goes deeper. This is of particular interest in the so called “real-time” programming. (There have been cases of assembly line machines killing workers, or badly designed or badly programmed cars and aircraft which have crashed and killed people.) And, finally, and I think Chesterton would agree, the point I raised earllier - if a thing becomes too complex, too troublesome and and too buggy, and if we have to rely on it, like our modern banking, for example, we may find ourselves in deep trouble. At that point we may want to shoot or burn such a lame “gift” horse gone mad.
Wild Goose
P.S.
This post, enetered shortly after my previous one in this thread, also disappeared, or was never saved. (I waited about 20 min. before re-posting it again.)
Tom,
ReplyDeletei don’t like the word “job” in your manifesto, and, i think neither did Chesterton. i know what you mean, but it is a very overloaded word, with many meanings, and with contrary meanings to what you (or Distributists) mean. There ought to be a better word or description.
Wild Goose
P.S.
i don’t know what has happened with this wretched computer i am using, but today i cannot type capital “i”, for some reason. There must be some glitch or a “devil” in the system, and i don’t have time or patience to reinstall everything. :-(