Slavery of Technology in our time

7/30/2019 Slavery of Technology in our time

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Slavery of Technology in our time

It is questionable, if my topic is relevant within the framework of slavery. In

common speech wordslavery is used on many different senses for example man as

a slave of laws of nature. But a suspicion arises if this way of speech makes the notion

of slavery too hazy, melting it together with the notion of necessity. The topic of

slavery reduces back to the question of freedom - extreme metaphysician who's pathos

is "all or nothing" claims that if we cannot be totally free we have no freedom - at the

end we are all slaves. This kind of understanding seems to be dangerous in pure

practical context: if we generalize the content of the term "slavery" to all humans then

there is no difference if we for example oppress directly other people or not.

Nevertheless, our intuition denies admitting that a successful businessman and low-

paid worker are equally enslaved.

At the same time I am not supporting a point of view that according to the

term "slavery" illustrates only relationships among humans - one man's (master's)

violence towards another person (slave). The philosophical analysis has shown that

this kind of conception is too narrow, let us remind Hegel's dialectics of slave and

master: even the master gets his being-a-master from slave. Or Marx's conception

about economic relations: economical basis determines producing. If to concentrate

on relationships between humans - which I am not doing - then, in my opinion, we

should look slavery as an extreme example of power relationships. On the

philosophical ground we shouldn't discuss over this one issue but rather over the

power relationships in general. Foucault, for example, has done that. But this kind of

analysis brings up wider questions: are power relationships typical to only human

relationships or is it a natural constant? Is freedom possible (not depending on

superior power)? And vice versa: is it possible to be without violence, without power?

We deal with these questions while discussing technique and slavery.

It is sensible to talk about slavery when we differ inevitability and force. Be it

naive: for example, we have to die, it is a biological fact; but if we are murdered, it is

force. Slavery could be this kind of force that exerts total pressure; we lack

possibility to escape it, to do choices concerning ourselves. According to this meaning

the force doesn't have to be direct - one man's direct pressure against the other.

Slaving can be also some artificial wider system (for example totalitarian state order.Let's leave aside the psychological aspect that some person can perceive the physical


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necessity as a slavery; another person may not feel enslaved under total pressure). We

can talk about the enslaving pressure towards a person in that sense. Many

contemporary philosophers have researched this kind of relationships; the most

famous one is probably Martin Heidegger's conception on technique.1

What is the slavery of technique about? If we consider freedom important, not

just human welfare, then the most dangerous force seems to be a hidden one without

any of the pressured one even noticing it. An example would be an ideological

brainwash (let us remember, how ends Orwell's "1984"). If on the occasion of

traditional slavery the relation between master and slave is always seen then in more

complicated situations (technique for example) people don't always perceive total

engagement and pressure. In case of dependency people lack ability to bring their

situation under consideration (for example narcotic addiction, workaholic, consuming

madness).

According to Heidegger the human relation to technique is characterized by

lack of knowledge, forgetfulness. Technique is conceived - and mostly today - as just

a tool in a man's hand. It seems that the question is how to use technique. It is claimed

that using technique causes some difficult problems but these problems can be solved:

we are clever enough to deal with technique. This kind of attitude bases on simple

logic - everything made by humans is secondary, stories about the revolt of technique

against a man are science fiction. Following the progress of technique (that was the

basis of our discussion) the line between inevitable (natural) and artificial becomes

hazy (for example from lengthening a human life with gene therapy to a science

fictional possibility of immortality in a virtual environment).

According to Heidegger a man has lost his head in the middle of modern

technique, he cannot analyze the relations we have fallen into. Let's not think

technique as only machinery but also relations that professional technique using has

brought with it. Namely: spread information (and noise), global markets, haziness of

human nature because of gene technology, new possibilities to spy and to control (let

us remember that the presupposition of the total regimes of the 20th century was the

presence of mass communication tools), cyber sex - all human relationships becoming

technical. Though Heidegger doesn't speak about returning to pre-technical age - this

1

See Heidegger, M. Die Frage nach der Technik. M. Heidegger. Die Technik und die Kehre.Pfullingen, Neske, 1962, S 5-36. Also in english: Heidegger, M. The Question Concerning Technology. The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays. Harper Torchbooks, 1969. P 3-35.


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returning is quite doubtful. Even more important is the reflection about the essence of

technics.

Heidegger calls the nature of technique a German word Gestell - total

disposing of wholeness that demands fitting into it from humans (for example a man

as a resource). A man has accepted the game rules of the modern world as a slave

because he doesn't think about his existence (prevailing value has consumering and

career). Since Descartes a man has considered him as thinking subject but now he

loses unnoticed his independence and becomes a companion (Bestand) in technical

engagements.

I am not describing only Heidegger's position here. Whole 20th century

philosophy deals with the problem of man's roots. Weber talks about arising rational-

bureaucratic society. Adorno speaks about the eliminative and destructive function of

pop culture. Baudrillard describes modern reality as a simulacrum (difference between

real and virtual disappears). Modern confusion is often called postmodernism. All

these theories can be bound with Heidegger's conception of technics. The thesis "Man

is a slave of technique (or something else's)" is not original, it is often talked about.

But yet, if something is often talked about, it is not considered very serious - it seems

that we cannot escape forgetting. Heidegger and other I mentioned discuss technics as

of one's kind fate.

Becoming technological was noticed already in the 19th century - it seemed

like a very scary and new thing at that time and it was considered more seriously. In

my opinion the most profound analyze of modern man's situation is offered by

Nietzsche (the death of God and the conception of nihilism). Nietzsche calls

scientific-technical creation a man's hybris towards himself ("On the Genealogy of

Morals"):

Our entire attitude to nature today, our violation of nature, with the help of machines and the

unimaginable inventiveness of our technicians and engineers, is hubris; our attitude to God is

hubris [---]our attitude to ourselves is hubris, for we experiment with ourselves in a manner

we would not permit with any animal and happily and inquisitively slit the souls of living

bodies open.2

2

Nietzsche, F. On the Genealogy of Morals. III, 9. Translated by Ian Johnston(http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/genealogy3.htm).


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Nietzsche often spoke about slave-morality or crowd-morality as inability to create

one's own values. Yet he hoped that the decadence of prevailing transcendent values

leads the Western culture to unavoidable catastrophe. Silent stagnation is impossible.

For that reason, according to Nietzsche, our destiny is not the slavery of technology

but a catastrophe where survivors are the ones who can create their own values

(bermensch). The last man doesn't survive. May be Nietzsche underestimated the

power of technology?

Can we fight the slavery of technology? Where to find Spartacus? The 20th

century philosophers are not very optimistic on that. In any case, we are not able to

resign technics, turn back to nature. The case is not only about disappearing

engagement between man and nature - the vision of human nature is lost (both

meanings of the word "nature" quote to Greekphysis). The only way to escape the

slavery of technology is to reflect over it. Heidegger likes to quote on Hlderlin:

where's the danger/ there rises the salvation. Heidegger alludes to the possibility to

turn to the origin of technique: technique as well as art become from Greektechne.

Art and poetry the most must save us.

Leading postmodern theoretician Gianni Vattimo makes a proposal to take the

challenge of modern technology3. Here as well is important to reflect over the nature

of technology (Gestell) but the aim is not to find a replacement. Vattimo claims,

supported by Heidegger, that the overwhelming force of modern technology loses its

metaphysical structure, including the subject-object connection. Vattimo asks should

we, in our situation, use our old vocabulary (understanding technology as slavery)?

What if we accept the simulacrum and understand our own existence as a fairytale?

Vattimo quotes to Nietzsche: the only possible way is to exist is to know that I am

sleeping and should keep doing so (Gay Science, 54). Or Hegel's saying: freedom is

perceived necessity. If we add a piece of Derrida: maybe we should resign binary

oppositions - slavery/freedom, natural/technological - and think of the differance that

creates those oppositions. Although these suggestions seem to be dangerous in

practical context (it reminds me of some Baudrillard's critic: life is not a simulation,

people are suffering for real!) they are intriguing in philosophical thinking.

3

See for example Vattimo, G. The end of modernity : nihilism and hermeneutics in postmodernculture. Cambridge : Polity Press, 1994.


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Gianni Vattimo believes that accepting the fairy-tale - existence loses its burden of

seriousness - disappears the need to violence because the thinking has no strong basis

anymore. In wider perspective the problem is not about slavery alone but the power

relations that passes through Western thinking (that is apparent also in the hierarchy

of logic's conceptions, methods of science etc). For me personally this kind proposal

seems more interesting than to look for new universal values.

Leo Luks

Translation from Estonian: Aire Vaher

Slavery of Technology in our time

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