Saturday, January 23, 2010

TECHNOLOGY THREATENS

Technology Threatens
Today, we are obsessed with becoming not man but machines. With T.V.s and computers at our command, we are losing the command of the natural resources within us which are lost ultimately, wasted because of our ignorance. The knowledge that we get from the T.V. and computer is fragmentary, plasticized and something that does not smell good. We are losing involvement in life, involvement with the living species.

Technology has bombarded the cellars of human consciousness. Irresistible as its charm has proved to be that man has become a willing victim of its magic and an unquestioning slave of his own unruly passions. Technology can bring about physical and material prosperity, but it cannot elevate the human mind, purify it or enrich it with nobler thoughts. Technology may have created very complicated machines which startle common intelligence, yet the feelings which a sunset scene inspires in the heart of man cannot be paralleled with visual media.

The onrush of technology has overwhelmed man to the extent that he has lost human perspective. Man, thinking of his future, is experimenting with technology, spacecraft and genetic engineering but these very explorations are turning him into an inhuman species, for the direction of this research is diabolical, demonic.

Man in his progress towards the next century, has lost the vital direction of his attempt. He has undertaken a voyage on the ship of technology which will ultimately blast itself.

We have denatured our existence; we live an artificial life of tele-adventures. We spurn social life as we are seduced by the relative unsociality of the T.V. We are depending so much on technology, machines and science today that we cannot imagine any life outside them in the same intense way as it would not be possible without oxygen. Such attachment with technology is bound to prove suicidal for man.

How can we reverse this drift which is dangerous to the extent that man can survive only if he is stripped of his humanity? For an answer, we need not go far beyond. Let us consult our scriptures. Let us consult our heroes that we or our parents have seen in flesh and blood.

At present, the most urgent need is to give a human direction to the forces of technology. Up till now, and if we do not accept the horrific reality, human history has been nothing but a trudge from Adam to atom, from universe to miniverse, a fall which has been hastened by technology. Let us step further our research, switch back and try to retrace the point at which the human thread was lost. If technology gets a spiritual dimension, if it loses the aura of a deadening force, and if it subserves, not subverts human interest and remains a servant, then, with this very technology, we can end our problems on the earth which so far have resisted all solutions.

How can the nervous system be rebuilt? Surely, not through T.V. and certainly, not without it. T.V. is an instrument which, if not given a constructive direction, will go on to destroy everything that is fine in man.

Anything that cuts at the human interest must be cut short. Every idea which engages man against man should be torn away from human mind. If we just do this, all the missiles of the world shall become irrelevant overnight, making irrelevant the direction of human progress up till now, and thereby making poor the ‘amirs’ of yesterday. If this shift in human attitude takes place, the already produced nuclear power would be sufficient to light up even the darkness of the Hell.

No comments:

Post a Comment