Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Vitually Ethical?

Technology is destiny.

        -->  HANS JONAS

A Civilization unable to differentiate between illusion & reality is usually believed to be at the tail end of its existence.

         -->  JOHN RALSTON SAUL

       We live in a society today such that our forebears (counting generations on two hands, not some long-distant past) would have had to resort to the supernatural to exxplain even what is quotidian to us.  The politics of speed and efficiency have changed the manner in which we relate to each other, the way we work, play and even love.  Many times have we seen products come to market seemingly a benison to the consumer, only to have such a product spit out by the market because of the strong taste of grave "externalities", one of those squishy pseudo-scientific terms to which economists cling lest there tenuous status as scientists be noticed by those with real power.  No, they don't want such externalities noticed after touting this latest commodity as sector-saving innovation; nevertheless, it is all too common to discover unforeseen negative consequences associated with such products.

     And don't forget the truly new tech routinely foisted upon our society.  Square watermelons.  Cloned sheep.  Select serotonin reuptake inhibitors.  "Beats" headphones.  And perhaps it is true that we will be happier music connesieours as we forage through the modern savanna of the local grocery store.  But what of the externalities we should be intelligent enough to suspect.  Will they be mere inconveniences?  Or will we perhaps discover suicidal ideation lurking beside our lighter mood.  And maybe there will be other ways in which the quality of life will be seriously degraded by the experimentation taking place in the glittering test tube that is consumer society.

       One of my favourite courses in university was called Society, Technology & Values, a course taught by that increasingly rare breed, a philosopher.  There was a quote from the text he authored that has stuck with me to this day that seems a propos to a discussion of this sort:"

       "One thing we have discovered in this century is that technological advancement outstrips society's capacity for conceptual development.  That is, while we may be able to develop rapidly, new technologies for maintaining life or for altering it, our capacity as a society to redefine essential concepts - like life and death for example - moves at a snail's pace by comparison."

 One of the problems I find is that there are so few willing to have a serious, open-minded discussion regarding this era of mindless comsumption.  One of the few academics willing to face the realm of technology in its entirety is the French philosopher, Jacques Ellul.  Here's a snippet of his critique:

      "The traditional ethical mileiu and the traditional moral values are admittedly in process of disappearing, and we are witnessing the creation of a new technological ethics with its own values.  We are witnessing the evolution of a morally consistent system of imperatives and virtues, which tends to replace the traditional system.  But man is not necessarily left thereby on a morally inferior level, although a moral relativism is indeed implied - an attitude according to which everything is well, provided that the individual obeys some ethic or other. "