Introduction⌗

There are many things that one often encounters in life, which, for no apparent reason, incurs his immediate disapproval. Such premature judgments can be a little concerning because they sometimes express our prejudices or other convenient misconceptions we might selfishly entertain. However underneath this seeming lapse in judgment there could also be a certain form of intuition at work. A way of seeing that signifies personal insight more than any kind of hateful bigotry. Instead of learning to discern between the two, we generally prefer to dismiss judgements of this sort, sometimes rightly so, regarding their spontaneity as a sure sign of ignorance.

Contemporary discourse has in many ways greatly benefited from being cautious towards such inner exigencies. So much so that discussions are expected to proceed along the lines of explicit, justifiable and, I dare say, pragmatic reasons. Dialogue is confined to the mere analysis of statements where any attempt to understand the other person or reconcile differences is subordinated to the quest of objectivity. Given that our whims and instincts mislead us more often than not, why shouldn’t we conduct ourselves otherwise? What bearing could our feelings, our intuitions and our deepest inclinations have in the pursuit of truth?

For the longest time, I considered the elimination of this “subjective” element as the mark of sober reasoning. Arguments presented in such a light speak for themselves and make way for the emergence of facts. In difficult matters these personal elements only stand to becloud the issue, effectively preventing any kind of discernment between truth and error. Nonetheless, this objectivity can only be meaningful in so far it serves the end of understanding. So what must one do when this objectivity ceases to illuminate? When it confronts forms of truth and human activity that cannot be reduced to a plane of reasoning? When it no longer facilitates mutual understanding but instead perverts the intentions of the speakers, reducing them to mindless automatons who have entirely forgotten the very purpose of human dialogue?

As isolated as it may seem, the subjugation of such human elements to a higher order of things is now commonplace. I personally found myself in the throes of this conflict in regards to the idea of specialized education. Ever since my departure from formal schooling, the way I had learned became extremely disorganized and spasmodic. In contrast to the stringent schedules and the neatly defined boundaries between subjects, I learned haphazardly and as randomly as I could. I felt the distinctions between intellectual endeavours slowly wane and I no longer saw them as isolated subjects oriented towards a predetermined end, but rather as an organic breathing edifice that represented the expression of the human instinct to illuminate the world. As I engaged with this edifice, it demanded the attention not just of my mind but of my whole being.

Following this realization, it was no longer possible for me to return to my old ways. I couldn’t wake up everyday and learn on prescribed times, eyeing constantly towards the utility of whatever I was taught. My tempo had long ceased to conform to the general blueprint that was laid out. It was as though for the first time I was able to feel the rhythm that resounded in the deepest parts of myself. All of this however only made me more maladjusted to the demands of civilized life. I was perplexed by the idea of specialization and how prevalent it had become. It was not just doing one thing that was worrying but it often came at the expense of being ignorant of the sheer breath of human experience. Knowledge was prevalently considered as nothing more than a means to sustenance and consequently it became important that learning must always serve a practical utility. As a result, what was ultimately required for survival became technical expertise. Some form of talent that rendered our pitiless existence slightly meaningful.

We have called this higher order of things “objectivity” in one place and “specialization” in another. There are still many more words that can broadly encompass this phenomenon but it still remains mostly obscure. What is clear however is that there is a persistent attempt to tame human nature. To modify and condition our modalities in order to make it conform to a set of rules. Most would call these rules as “society” but even that leaves much to be explained. Confronting an onslaught of external threats which undermine human survival is not solely a product of our time. Although technological progress has removed the constant worry of fighting for basic means and sustenance, our life continues to be, in many ways, encroached by imperceptible forces. But in light of the unprecedented luxury and abundance that surrounds us, this seems either far fetched or atleast trivial. If anything, progress has occasioned an era of endless possibilities where communication, transportation and commerce have acquired a breathtaking degree of perfection. And in the intoxication of what is possible, of the treasures that the future holds in store, conforming to rules seems unimportant or perhaps even desirable. After all, isn’t conformity an inconsequential sacrifice in the path towards technological progress?

Ends and Means⌗

The problems engendered by such technological developments has entered the purview of many great thinkers. Aldous Huxley, who is particularly known for his novel “Brave New World”, spent the better part of his life trying to understand the ramifications of technology and how it could lead to the subjugation of human nature. Working along similar lines, George Orwell in his infamous “1984” also presaged the rise of totalitarianism and the eradication of individual liberties through technological means. Both Orwell and Huxley envisioned a dystopian future that was dominated by some form of totalitarian state which replaced values of freedom and criticality with either unquestioning obedience or mindless luxury. Despite their differences, it was clear to both of them that fundamentally human values which served as the cornerstone of civilization were under siege and technology would be its coupe de grace. But the question remains, how did this come to be? If technology simply served as a means to an end to land the final blow doesn’t the actual problem lie elsewhere?

It is inadequate to suggest that mere perfection of technological capabilities were solely responsible for the siege on human values. There were many historical conditions which contributed to this malaise, especially the dissolution of religious and metaphysical structures under the primacy of reason. Much like Galileo’s decentering of the earth in the solar system, man’s nature and his existence were dethroned from being the fulcrum which organized human affairs. The works of Freud and Darwin, in their unparalleled rational lucidity, penetrated the supposed metaphysical roots of an individual, showing that our innermost beings were determined, not by divine will, but impersonal natural laws. Humanity was dissuaded from the notion that they were children of two distinct worlds. The mounting evidence suggested that they only belonged to the tangible and must reckon with the brevity it invariably imposed. The emergence of these ideas was followed by a slew of rationalist totalitarian ideologies, attempting to fashion men in the image of perfection. If the possibility of transcendence was entirely annihilated, if there really was no metaphysical enclosure, no extra-mundane point of view which justified the suffering that abounds, it became our responsibility to establish worldly paradise. And fundamentally reconstitute society to ensure man’s return to Eden that was so vainly promised in archaic scriptures.

The central concern of almost all modernist ideologies then was to discover the ideal form of social organization that would usher in this utopia. Despite the apparent differences between the various “isms” that were consequently produced, they were all premised on the idea that human nature was essentially malleable. Whatever identity we constructed for ourselves and the enshrined values which sought to protect human nature nature was considered a product of social and culture circumstances. There was no such thing as fundamentally “human” problems. They were merely problems of society, of culture and as a result warranted external reform more than individual insight. The deeply entrenched belief of the arbitrariness of our existence, underpinned by the hubris that attempts to remake man in whatever way one sees fit, is, in my opinion, the animating spirit of modern culture.

Aldous Huxley, in his book “Ends and Means”, presented a particular way of looking at history that illuminated the workings of this spirit. Huxley observed that with the rise of totalitarian ideologies which sought to revolutionize society by undermining the idea of the hallowed “individual”, there was also an increasing tendency to justify decadent means by invoking the nobility of their ends. The Nazis were justified in the massacring of Jews because they wanted to cleanse the world and usher in a paradisal state of humanity. The lies perpetrated by communists, their mass genocide of the Kulaks and the disenfranchisement of citizens were all necessary means to achieve the ideal society. A society that was entirely devoid of suffering. As much as these events bear an ideological veneer, Huxley proposed that it was underpinned by a fundamental perversion of “ends” and “means”. None of these ideologies and their proponents professed the destruction of humanity. They simply wanted to put an end to some of the perennial problems that plagued us all. They firmly believed that the atrocities they committed would be vindicated by the future whose foundations they were laying in blood.

This was, according to Huxley, not just a characteristic of extremist ideologies but of modern society in general. For instance, the ultimate end of education has always been one of personal enlargement. It was to teach individuals to think critically, question and engage with problems of life in a manner that was fruitful and undogmatic. However, Huxley pointed out that modern society was more concerned with producing specialists than individuals who were truly educated. Specialization initially made its appearance to facilitate cooperation and the leveraging of one’s specific talents. What it produced instead was according to Huxley a form of “general imbecility”. Doctors, engineers and educators in spite of having profound technical knowledge in their respective fields were still hopelessly prey to ideological and dogmatic slumber. They did their job and, more often that not, they did it exceptionally well. Why must one think and question, engaging oneself in affairs that lie outside the bounds of his expertise when he has already achieved mastery?

In matters of law, education, politics and even in general conversation one can clearly discern that the ultimate ends of all these human activities are being slowly eclipsed by the supposed means of their realization. Education that should foster critical thought instead engenders selective ignorance. Political ideologies that served to profess important values are now simply a sophisticated pretext to wield power. The practice of law that once remained subordinate to the pursuit of ideal justice has devolved into an indifferent framework which recognizes no truth outside its own legality. But most important of all, conversations themselves have become vain attempts to eradicate silence by filling it with words that have no real relationship with those who utter them. There is some parallel between this line of development and the siege on human values that was alluded to previously. However it is important to recognize that those values have not entirely disappeared from our horizon. All of us still collectively extol truth, justice, equality and the importance of critical thought. But these self professed ideals have been hollowed out. The tether which rooted them in a particular way of looking at the world has been severed entirely. They exist as mere spectres whose true loyalty now lies elsewhere.

Technique and Ellul⌗

So with these observations we have implicitly painted the picture of a frontier whose precise nature bedevils us. It is, for the most part, a landscape pervaded by ambiguity where, as Nietzsche so famously proclaimed, there is no “up or down”. Where values, no longer grounded by an overarching Weltanschauung, retain only their most provisional identities. However underneath the perversion of such human ends, we can glean the faint whispers of a movement whose importance we have so far underestimated. It is a movement that seems quite indifferent to ideological and moral considerations because it does not require the impetus of human initiative. It proceeds along its own lines, transforming whatever lies in its path and recognizes no ends outside itself. As much as Huxley provided us with a perspective which illuminated the problems of modern man whilst warning us of the nefarious role technology would come to play, it was Jacques Ellul who could see, in its entirety, the movement transforming modern culture. According to Ellul the threat did not consist of men indiscriminately wielding the powers of technology. It was rather in technology itself, imposing its mechanical will and turning us all essentially blind to judgments of good and evil. The fundamental insight that Ellul furnished to the discussion of the technological phenomenon is that as much as technology is a product of modern man, modern man is also equally a product of technology.

Like Huxley, Ellul also adopted a perspective similar to “ends and means” which he deployed to trace the development of modern culture. But he departed from most other thinkers in his peculiar treatment of technology. He proposed that the technological phenomenon has a two fold aspect. It is partly historical in the sense that one can observe its beginnings long before the proper invention of any machine like apparatus. He considered this nascent stage of development “technological” because it is marked by the use of technique. A technique, in common understanding, refers to a set of means systematically employed to achieve a predetermined end. The technique itself is impartial to whoever applies it and its efficacy is largely determined by its own nature. Ellul’s conceptualization of technique is quite similar but he does not confine its application to a purely mechanical context. As much as the tools of hunting in primitive societies constitutes as a form of technique, the application of rationality, the practice of law and politics or even the implementation of economic policies also equally come under its purview.

Therefore by extending the domain proper of technique, Elull characterized a framework of ends and means where technological progress was constituted by the perfection of techniques hitherto devised. And the machine, in this line of development, represented the epitome of such a process. As much as any human activity can be encapsulated by this fabric of ends and means, what distinguished a technique was its impersonal striving for perfection. It consisted of means, often leveraging some form of rational principle, that was arrived at through careful experimentation. And its very conception begets a search for the most efficient way to attain its purpose. A technique could include something as tangible as the methodical use of fire in forging weapons and as abstract as a pedagogical structure in institutions of education. Throughout the course of history, the number of techniques employed to understand and harness nature has steadily increased. But there was always, as Ellul notes, a mysterious desire to temper its proliferation.

In Greece, particularly, there was an emphasis placed on maintaining the economy of means in different facets of civic and personal life. Whenever a situation necessitated the creation of some “new” technique, the Greeks made the utmost efforts to assimilate the novelty within their existing framework. They maintained that regardless of circumstance it was always wise to leverage existing mechanisms to address issues rather than creating something seemingly better. According to the Greeks, techniques only existed to facilitate a life of simplicity and not its own development. Historical records abound with such examples where the perfection of existing means or techniques did not always occupy the forefront of social consciousness. A black smith forging weapons for battle was concerned, not just with the practical utility of his product, but also its aesthetic appeal. Considerations of truth, beauty and simplicity always hovered above the desire of technique to achieve its own perfection, making the use of it not an impersonal mechanical process leading nowhere but a conscious deliberate choice in securing an ideal.

The search for efficiency only began when the overseers of this latent desire slowly disappeared, creating a social milieu where technique could operate without mitigation. This consists of the other aspect of the technological phenomenon, a social and historical environment which whole heartedly accepted the movement towards endless perfection and efficiency. Therefore with the industrial revolution the world saw an explosive growth of techniques which encompassed all of human life. New forms of economic organization were invented. Bureaucratic machineries significantly expanded to account for the growing population. The universities accommodated to disciplines with endless sub divisions, each of which did more or less the same under different contexts. Most importantly, the progress of science created machines that could harness the forces of nature like never before which, whilst accomplishing unparalleled technical wonders, also put weapons of mass destruction at the hands of a few powerful men.

Technology was allowed to grow without boundaries or restrictions, creating a world of intricate inter dependence where modern man’s primary preoccupation was to integrate himself to this process. One of Ellul’s chief insights about the technological explosion was that each development, each specialization and invention of a new technique called for more of itself. Therefore with the proliferation of techniques, of disciplines and sophisticated machines, grew the endless need for perfection and efficiency. The need to constantly move forward which was underpinned by a strange human instinct for ceaseless doing. Nothing mattered as long as one contributed to the expansion of the technical milieu. As questions of “why” were relegated into needless philosophy, individuals immersed themselves into the more relevant problems of “how”, making specialization the sin qua non of modern life. Akin to a spider trapped in its own web, modern man became confined by the technological society which he created. A society where every step forward reminds him that the purpose of his existence was in his own undoing. Where what was required of him was not the development of his individual faculties or the fruition of his curiosity but rather his mere capacity to just “do”.

The Knot⌗

Therefore with the rise of technology, there emerged a culture of techniques and technicians preoccupied with their jobs and how it contributed to nothing more than the movement forward. Mechanisms belonging to political, economic, judicial and psychological domains sought only their own elaboration. The mass of techniques called forth by the modern era under the pretext of prosperity created a monolithic societal machinery whose furtherance was contingent upon reducing individuals to a statistical average. But the nature of this technological society, of how the mysterious “technique” transformed modern life still remains elusive. Isn’t technique merely a process through which you efficiently do something? What could possibly be dangerous about striving for perfection and honing our talents to achieve what we deem as valuable?

It is not any individual technique per se that presents such a great threat. Techniques in politics and economics have helped us construct better societies. Psychological techniques, although fairly recent, have afforded better insight into human nature, greatly informing decisions on workplaces and other environments where individuals might confront undue stress. All of the various techniques that emerged in the wake of the industrial revolution seems to have, if anything, improved the quality of human life. But it is important to recognize that none of these domains can be viewed in isolation. I believe in the very act of doing, in engaging one’s intellectual or physical capacities systematically to secure an outcome, there is a certain momentum, a comfort that was heavily guarded against. Being left to reckon with the weight of sentience, the capacity for mere doing has always been our immemorial source of refuge. However in this immersion, we are also reduced to uni dimensional creatures hoping momentarily to liberate ourselves from the mire of consciousness. The primordial need to escape the reality of the human situation, of the impossible questions it invariably imposes, is what technique as a whole exploits.

As much as all the domains we have hitherto discussed make life tentatively better, there is an impersonal automatism that informs their development, giving rise to a never ending procession where individuals are only allowed to be the purveyor of cause and effect, perpetually forgetting, for as long as they can, about the true nature of existence. Therefore beneath the enticing spectacle of technological development, one finds the steady encroachment of an ateleological fabric encompassing all of human life. With every new technique and specialization, with every scientific discovery and political development, there is a creation of “necessity”, reciprocally producing more of itself as it offers respite from the burden of reflection. So the relentless march towards progress, despite the luxurious amenities it affords, is also fundamentally an attempt to forget. To reduce a person into a mere constellation of factors whose only purpose is to elaborate the societal fabric which maintains his dreamless stupor.

In view of these observations, it doesn’t take much to realize that the conditions of modern life are oriented towards our unbecoming. And within such a society, survival is only guaranteed in the abandoning of idiosyncrasies or atleast those of which that impede the progress of this machinery. The forms of knowledge that are consequently produced and their application, although seemingly operating for a higher purpose, mostly contribute to the adjustment of men to society. Not to the enlargement of their consciousness. So even in a discipline as evidently altruistic as psychology, only issues of maladjustment are addressed, sometimes at the expense of nurturing one’s individual nature. But none of these developments necessitate an increase in human suffering.

The world that we now live in is quite far removed from the Orwellian vision of authoritarian states. Wars waged in the name of religion and rational ideologies were resisted by denizens of the state because they persecuted the innocent. They threatened to take away the freedom of individuals by force because they believed it served a higher purpose. But what if force was instead replaced by consent? As Huxley writes in Brave New World, why would individuals want freedom at the expense of personal responsibility? Why would they want to nurture themselves at the expense of maladjustment? Why would they prefer truth to the comfort of propaganda? The apparent use of force in modern times has been steadily decreasing because it is no longer necessary. The mass of techniques we have discussed and all the different domains it has produced, although offering isolated moments of reflection, as a whole plunge modern man into a delightful slumber from which he has no reason to awake.

In the story of the fall, Adam ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge because he was enticed by Satan. Before the fruit and the accursed knowledge of good and evil, all he had ever known was bliss. The birth of consciousness that soon followed Adam’s lapse in judgment, is also the birth of human suffering. Although these ancient stories have been relegated into the antiquities of the past, the longing for paradisal bliss never truly faded from the heart of man. A longing sometimes manifesting as a desperate plea to undo Adam’s fatal error. I cannot help but see the technological society as the incarnation of such a plea. In the bustle of modern crowds, in the secluded libraries of universities, in fully packed theaters and in the chambers of parliaments one can hear the constant hum of this plea resounding louder and louder. The hum soothes the ear it befalls, guaranteeing not only the happiness of the beholder but also his sanity.

But what if one closes his ears? He is assailed by questions to which there are no answers. He is confronted by empty values which perpetuate mindless doing. He sees the perversion of ends and means, of techniques and its subjects. He is cast aloof, left with no direction except the voice of the vox populi. He risks severing the last tether which grounds him in the world of the profane as he asks himself what is the immutable foundation upon which a man can discern good from evil?