IS TECHNOLOGY BENIGN, MALIGN, OR NEUTRAL?

The importance of this question cannot be overstated, because those who argue that technological progress is the only path to human development often dismiss those who put the environment first as Luddites or green romantics, who hark back to some sort of mythical time when men and women lived harmoniously together in a vegan paradise.  As the economic and environmental crisis deepens, I believe that both these views are dangerous, and we all need to understand why.

Firstly, let me offer two historical examples to illustrate why even our smallest actions can have huge implications for all of us.

a)         In the mid nineteenth century one man introduced two rabbits intoAustralia.

As they multiplied and spread, the richer grasslands on which cattle were grazed started to deteriorate.  (Cattle are selective grazers, rabbits nibble everything down to the roots).  Such was the rapacity of the rabbits that a rabbit proof fence was constructed from the north to the south ofAustraliato try and prevent them from spreading into the west of the country.  People spent their lives constantly repairing it.  Sheep farming became more profitable, and the fleeces exported toBritain’s industrial woollen mills.  Thus, the introduction of these two rabbits effected the way the Australian economy developed, and in turn, that ofBritain.

b)         Before Henry Ford started to mass produce the motor car, much thought was given to the building of new towns and villages to house the growing population.

Progressive thinkers proposed the building of Garden Cities in which every house would have its own green area, e.g. Welwyn Garden City.  The advent of mass produced cars put paid to this movement as town planning was adapted to take account of this new form of transport.  Almost every planning permission today is granted on the basis that there is adequate parking and the road system can take the traffic flow.

So what are the implications for our own future and that of our children for the sorts of technologies that are part and parcel of our lives today?  Let us look at three examples.

a)         OIL  It is not only transport that is utterly reliant on oil, but every bit of plastic in your computer, phone, television, bin bag etc.  Without oil none of these things could exist.  Yet retrievable oil reserves are rapidly being exhausted, together with rare earth minerals which are essential for most electrical technology.  The most readily available oil reserves are in the Middle East; hence that region’s political importance and instability. China controls approx 95% of the world’s rare earth minerals, and naturally wishes to use them for its own growing internal market and manufacturing exports.  As a result political decision making revolves around the supply of oil and rare earth minerals.

b)         NUCLEAR – ‘TOO CHEAP TO METER’  The current estimated cost for decommissioningBritain’s aging nuclear power stations is 80 billion pounds.  Unlike coal or gas fired power stations, we can’t just walk away and leave them.  Successive governments have not only shifted this problem on to the economic back burner, but are planning to build new nuclear power stations mainly on the same sites ie. at sea level for cooling purposes.  Given that sea levels are rising and plutonium is radio active for at lease five thousand years, our politicians are either incredibly naïve or ‘barking mad’ in that they believe we will continue to have the nuclear technological expertise to look after them together with the waste they produce for that period of time, ie. the age ofStonehenge!

c)         COMPUTERS  – ‘THE PAPERLESS OFFICE’  We now consume more paper than ever before.  However, what is often overlooked is the physical and emotional effects of staring at a tv or computer screen for long periods of time and the cost to ourselves and the wider economy, e.g. i. memory becomes lazy (I can store it on a machine).  ii.  Imagination and creativity are constrained by the sheer volume of information pouring into the struggling brain.  iii. ditto real, as distinct from virtual human inter-reaction:  you cannot receive or communicate the deeper emotional and physical messages via a screen.  These can only be exchanged in personal head and heart conversations through physical meeting.  iv. We are not just brains, we are physical organisms, and unless we use our bodies they will degenerate.  The touch of the screen can never be a substitute for the touch of another human being.

So what is the answer – a retreat to peasant farming or a vain and hopeless quest for some utterly mythical Holy Grail of Technology?  As I wrote in last month’s column, without some sort of spiritual awakening, both the desire for a return to a rural idyll and some sort of techno-salvation are dangerous delusions.  No-one with any sense of history would want to return to the menial drudgery of peasant farming in a denuded bio-sphere, and neither would anyone with any vision want to seek to preserve the drivers of much of our banal materialistic culture – a culture that denies the young in particular, meaningful fulfilment.

All of us are going to have to get used to a reduced standard of living, so now is the time to ask ourselves what sort of society do we want.  A minority are already trying to do this by developing some sort of spiritual and emotional intelligence.  They can see that some technologies are benign, sustaining and appropriate, ie they are personal and work in harmony with the natural order, rather than being exploitive of nature and people.  Such technologies will always be small scale and local rather than vast centralised industries run by an elite.  The vision would be for local, self-sustaining economies that export their surpluses and unique products, and import what they cannot produce themselves.