I expect this subject to demand more than one post, so today's will be only a start. But first, some background…my own, so you’ll know where I’m coming from, at least when it comes to technology.
I’ve been wrapped up in technology for most of my life. As a teenager I became a licensed ham radio operator and took a math/science path through high school. Okay, I also studied Latin and German, but my real interests were in the sciences. Georgetown University accepted me as an astronomy major, but then my dad convinced me to ask the university if I could switch to its School of Foreign Service. Why I agreed to this, I can’t answer today, but Dad could be persuasive. Anyway, Georgetown agreed and I spent my freshman year with a bunch of budding diplomats — nice folks, but a bit odd.
Everything changed when I received an appointment to the U. S. Naval Academy, a school where technology rules. Four year later I graduated from Annapolis with a specialty in electrical engineering and a minor in German. I’d always been fascinated by aviation, so naval flight school was the logical next step. After earning my Navy “wings of gold,” I spent the next decade flying, attending graduate school where I studied management and computer science, teaching computer science at the Naval Academy, and doing other exciting Navy stuff at sea and ashore.
Diane and I enjoyed Navy life, but I was facing more sea duty, more time away from my family, and more moves. Once again my dad suggested a change, and asked me to join him in his sales and management training and consulting business. And once again, this time with Diane’s support, we agreed. I resigned my Regular Navy commission and transferred to the Naval Reserve, in which I served the country for another 15 years. In the meantime we moved to Cape Cod to begin this new chapter. I stayed connected with technology, applying it as a tool in our business. In fact, we had a computer long before the advent of the PC. There were other adventures: working as a low-level dean at Providence College; teaching business programs there and at Roger Williams University; and working for a Massachusetts-based hi-tech firm that specialized in programmable telecommunications switches.
Of course, throughout these years Diane and I tried to live faith-filled lives. I read and took courses in Scripture and theology in an effort to expand my knowledge and deepen my faith. About 30 years ago, I accepted a call to begin formation for the diaconate, and was ordained a permanent deacon on May 24, 1997.
That, then, is my story in brief, at least part of it. I’ve long been somewhat of a techno-dweeb, but have also been concerned about technology’s pervasive presence and, in truth, its growing control over so many aspects of our lives.
Let me turn now to the real subject of this post by referring to a small book written almost a century ago by Romano Guardini (1885-1968), one of the Church’s great 20th-century theologians,. The book, Letters from Lake Como, first published in 1926, consists of a series of letters Guardini wrote several years earlier (1923). Focused on the increasing domination of human culture by technology, these letters are remarkably prescient and lead us to question whether technology is a human accomplishment to celebrate or a means to our ultimate subjugation. This, of course, is a question many ask today as we cope with technological intrusions, both overt and covert, into even the most private aspects of human life. I find it truly remarkable that Guardini could anticipate this possibility nearly 100 years ago.
At one point, in a discussion of tools, Guardini addresses their different forms. Basic tools -- for example , a hammer -- become extensions of the human body allowing us to accomplish tasks with greater ease, accuracy, and refinement. It would be hard indeed to hammer a nail with my fist, easier perhaps with a rock, but far more satisfactory using a hammer designed specifically for the task.
At a higher level we find the development of tools whose function does not demand direct human interaction. For example, a millstone, designed to grind wheat or other grains, can be turned by water power without the direct application of human effort. This application of natural means allows the human, uninvolved in the tool's actual work, to control the process with minimal effort. In the same way, by using horses to pull wagons or other vehicles to transport people or material, the human interacts with and controls the natural means (the horses) by which the work is accomplished.
Guardini then addresses more capable machines that "relieve us of direct work; we need only construct and supervise them." Here he includes machines that work with other machines, controlling them to accomplish increasingly complicated tasks of the sort preformed in the factories of his day. The automobile and airplane would also fall into this general category.
At this point Guardini adds that many machines and instruments have become extremely complex, their development the result of expanding scientific knowledge and technological and engineering expertise. These concepts are not understood by non-experts, who no longer experience directly the totality of the tools being used; i.e., they no longer wield the hammer. They might operate the machine, and yet have little understanding of the science and technology needed to make and use it effectively.
This, Guardini believed, leads to a kind of societal polarization. Here I think it best to offer a rather long quote from an address he gave in 1959 that forms an addendum to the latest edition of his book. As you read these words, keep in mind they were written over 60 years ago.
"...machines give us constantly increasing power. But having power means not only that those who have it can decide on different things; it also means that these different things will influence their own position. To gain power is to experience it as it lays claim to our mind, spirit, and disposition. If we have power, we have to use it, and that involves conditions. We have to use it with responsibility, and that involves an ethical problem. If we try to avoid these reactions, we leave the human sphere and fall under the logic of theoretical and practical relations.
"Thus dangers of the most diverse kind arise out of the power that machines give. Physically one human group subjugates another in open or concealed conflict. Mentally and spiritually the thinking and feelings of one influence the other. We need think only of the influence of the media, advertising, and public opinion." [p. 105-106]
I was particularly drawn to his comment that "one human group subjugates another in open or concealed conflict," and could not help but consider the application of artificial intelligence in a wide variety of forms to many aspects of our lives by government agencies, corporations, social media, etc. These forms are designed not only to gather information about us as individuals and members of various groups, but more disturbingly to use that information, applying it in ways that can alter what we do, what we believe, and how we think about our culture’s most basic values.
After rereading Guardini’s book this week, I opened the latest issue (August/September 2021) of First Things and encountered two surprisingly relevant articles. (Unfortunately, I don’t believe either is accessible online unless you are a paid subscriber.) One, by Ned Desmond and entitled “The Threat of Artificial Intelligence,” offers a rather dark glimpse into the kind of future we might well encounter as we face the “open or concealed” threat posed by A.I. as government and industry conspire to exert greater control over our lives. Hmmm…sounds a lot like old-fashioned, traditional fascism to me.
The second article, really a book review of a new novel, The Silence, by Don DeLillo, depicts how the characters cope with the sudden collapse of all technology. The book doesn’t really address causes so much as it examines reactions to it all. I’ve read only one of DeLillo’s other novels, Underworld (1997), in which the author looks at Cold War America and its obsessions. He is a skillful writer well worth reading.
Both articles, however, only highlight the truth of Guardini’s 100-year-old ideas about the dangers of a technology misunderstood and misused, dangers that seem to be far closer to reality than most of us think. Later in life Romano Guardini expanded on his earlier thoughts in his book, The End of the Modern World (first published 1950), a prophetic examination of how we arrived at the world we experience today. Every literate human should read it. It’s that important a book.
More on the subject in future posts. Right now I need a nap.
