Because You Never Asked

 TECHNOLOGY 

            I've always been fond of travel. I don't see how anyone setting forth the philosophical pretensions I am in these pages could make claim to such wisdom without having seen a variety of cultures and places. If one of the attributes of a good philosopher is to have gotten about a bit, at least I qualify on that account.

            I recently went to my local travel agent to secure passage away from the usual tedium of my every day existence. Today's travel agency bears little resemblance to the one of just ten years ago. It now more resembles some kind of strategic air command bunker swimming in the electronic wizardry we generally associate with underground war rooms and nuclear attacks. It seems that such pulsating gadgetry is now essential if one is to fly from point A to point B.

            I'm not convinced of this.

            Going to the travel agent is never a routine experience for me. I've finally begun to understand why this is so: these enclaves of technological ostentation are only set to work smoothly if you are going to Disneyland or Las Vegas. What's more, you must be going for such respectably measured time frames as a weekend, a week, or 14 days and 13 nights. If you are one of the masses that form this travel minion, it is amazing what kind of bang you will get for your buck: they'll throw in a car, various complimentary steaks and baked potatoes, a trip to Snake World, a floor show full of girls dressed only in a piece of string, etc. etc. (drinks not included)

            If you are one of the subversive characters that fall outside these parameters, your airline ticket will cost about the same as the down payment on a house. You will then have to change planes in Orlando, Atlanta, New York, London, Frankfurt and who knows what other global economy air hub, before finally arriving to your destination in a blood shot daze at one in the morning. Unfortunately, the one piece of luggage you had the guts to check is spinning patiently on a carousel in Las Vegas.

            Predictably, I fall into the latter category and the high tech, war room scenario has done little to lessen my burden.

            My recent trip to the travel agent was typical. It all started innocently enough with a smiling young girl asking how she could help me. As I sketched my itinerary, the smile began to fade and the barest hint of a furl began insinuating itself into her forehead. With a noticeable lack of aplomb, she turned to her green-faced computer and settled into a frenzied attack on the keyboard worthy of anything I'd ever seen from Liberace. As she feverishly pecked away, I could not help noticing the rest of the office, which danced to a rhythm of machines hissing, belching, flashing and clacking away on all sides. Unattended organisms of metal and plastic were spitting out fully completed tickets to, undoubtedly, Las Vegas and Disneyland. I could only sit and marvel as I awaited my fate.          

            Eventually, after what seemed to be an interminable interlude of grunts, sighs, and other ambiguous sounds and punctuations not befitting the respectable girl attending me, an unintelligible string of letters resembling a series of Polish surnames without enough vowels, began flashing on the screen. Much to my amazement, the young girl knew exactly what it meant; it meant I was screwed and we had to start again.

            At this point I must defend myself. Although my itinerary was not the "Wally World" one so comfortably serviced by our travel industry, I was not going to anywhere so remote as the dark side of the moon or Youngstown, Ohio. I am not on any National Geographic assignment in search of the almost extinct Panda-Koala, last seen in the shrouded mists of the Himalayan headwaters of the Yangtze River. I was simply trying to get to a well-known island in the Mediterranean Sea.

            To make a long story even longer, I spent the next hour sitting patiently, examining brochures for Club Med, golf getaways, Busch Gardens, Mardi Gras, tennis camps, and other such respectable destinations where they really want you to go, while the unfortunate young lady working on my case tried to crack it. As the lunch hour approached, I could feel the tension rising. Phone calls were made, the boss was consulted, and the athletic rhapsody on the computer keyboard continued. There were even moments of delirious expectation --- at one point we thought we had it at a remarkably low price, but the bubble burst when we found the deal only applied on a Leap Year for those of Cherokee descent. It was finally decided, by mutual consent, that I'd return in two days, when the verdict would be rendered.

            It's moments like this when I begin to feel, down to the deepest pith of my consciousness, the insanity of our occidental life style. This feeling is not confined to travel agents. Each year I regularly attend a big time professional tennis tournament held near my home. Tennis scoreboards used to be manually operated, a perfectly reasonable method considering the pace at which tennis scores change. Now all the scoreboards are computerized extravaganzas that break down or malfunction with dependable punctuality. This lunacy extends to banks, supermarkets, ticket agencies and a whole host of places where the 21^st century has already arrived. Sometimes I have to blink or pinch myself . then I have to ask if I'm getting in and out of these places with more facility than in the "old days".

            I'm not against technology. But there is a fine line between using it rationally to secure our well-being and using it recklessly in a way that becomes destructive. Our technological accomplishments are running way ahead of our ability to improve ourselves emotionally. This is a dangerous combination.

            The problem with technology is that its development and utilization are under the almost complete dominion of the "Business Tyranny" (see essay "The Revolution and Capitalism"). The motor that drives it all is the incentive to make money. It's not unreasonable to say that this arrangement has spurred on the spectacular success we've had in this area, but it is time to step back and reassess. This incentive to develop technology based purely on doing business is becoming very destructive. We are burning noxious fuels in unnecessary quantities, we are creating unhealthy amounts of waste, we are destroying important animal habitat, we are clearing forests and jungles that provide ecological functions, just as the filled in marshes and swamps do. If we cannot find a way to advance our technologies without resorting purely to the degrading incentive to make money, then I'm afraid we will not reach any higher evolutionary realization as a species. We have made this incentive to make money the focal point, the centerpiece, the foundation of our system of values. It is beginning to have a corrosive effect on our personalities. If the amounts of anti-social behavior our society now spawns are bordering on the unacceptable, it's not because we've moved away from some simple minded concept of God, or that our families are breaking apart, or that our kids are seeing too many hairy genitals, or some other flat headed, Bill Bennett kind of chicken soup pseudo-wisdom. No!

            It's because we have given ourselves over, almost exclusively, to "doing business".

            If we cannot eventually transcend this way of motivating ourselves and find a more altruistic, rational road to technological development, it will end up consuming us.

            And the Great Pyramids will lie in ruins once again.           

            Relevant material: "Julio Senador warned us at the beginning of this century (meaning the 20^th century), referring himself to Castilla, that each tree sacrificed was another step towards misery and tyranny."  From the book, "Un Mundo que Agoniza" (A World in Agony), by the Spaniard, Miguel Delibes.

            "You will remember that one or two wise men amongst our ancestors (wise men truly, although not in the estimation of the world) dared to doubt the propriety of the word "progress" applied to the advancement of our civilization ( . and believed in) principles that would have taught our species to submit itself to the natural laws instead of trying to intervene." From the short story "Discussion Between Monos and Una", by the tortured genius, Edgar Allen Poe.

            "No fighting in the War Room!" Uttered by the President of the United States (Peter Sellers) in the great movie, "Dr. Strangelove".       

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Email: JerryG@postcman.info