Out of Balance

It’s not just AI

It’s fruitful to go back to such figures as Lewis Mumford, who wrote on the history of technology and whose book The Myth of the Machine informs current conceptions of the psychosocial dynamics of contemporary technology. Over fifty years ago he warned against a convergence of science, economics, and technics buttressed by political power which militates against life-enhancing values, those which begin in the place which is least repressible: the Empire of the Self. “But for those of us, who have thrown off the myth of the machine, the next move is ours: for the gates of the technocratic prison will open automatically, despite their rusty ancient hinges, as soon as we choose to walk out.” –Mumford, Pentagon of Power , Epilogue: Advancement of Life, p. 435.

Yes, I am talking about self reliance. Just like last time. My thoughts become more insistent upon being heard as it becomes clear just what is at stake. To review, I am speaking of that realm in which the self begins to atrophy; it leaves us as our ability and desire to escape the state of tutelage leaves us, which comes about when one no longer is able, or even wishes, to think for oneself.

This dovetails into Herbert Marcuse’s theory of technological rationality, which posits that philosophical Rationalism transmogrifies into a “technological rationality” which, once the technology becomes ubiquitous, changes what is considered rational within that society. It has a moral dimension. For example, is it moral to put off answering an email for more than a single business day? From this perspective, being “connected” takes on the flavor of a moral imperative. It’s treated as irrational and immoral to fail to respond to an email or text for more than some small amount of time, like a second. What do you owe the Combine, as I like to call it? “Combine” defined as I did above in connection to Mumford’s concept of the Myth of the Machine: a state of affairs characterized by a convergence of science, economics and technics undergirded by the political. “The true meaning of the technological Age can only be realized when it becomes apparent which kind of politics can master the new technology.” –Carl Schmitt

Beyond Mumford in the quest for personal autonomy there is the figure of Ralph Waldo Emerson. There is a definite mystical tinge to his writings on the Empire of the Self contained in his 1841 essay Self-Reliance. “Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company in which the members agree for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue most in request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.” Sucking at the teat of Mammon always and everywhere exists as logically prior to the technological imperative. Can you walk away from it all? It’s a tall order.