| Technology is a slippery subject that can be approached from many different angles. Technology is always moving forward, ever faster, and ever more stream lined. It has always questioned how we may advance, and never whether or not we should. When I look at how technology has affected our society, the primary pattern that arises is conformity of thought. Technology has given birth to the mass consumer. Technology has tried to give us meaning to our lives. Technology has shaped our thinking and taken over our society. We live in a consumer based world that promises to fulfill all of our needs with bigger televisions, nicer cars, and imported furniture. People drive around listening to self-help tapes that tell them they are beautiful people while they wear stylish clothing and define themselves by the type of car that they drive. Clear skin and perfect teeth are the goals of modern man, along with the perfect bodies promised by underwear commercials Technology has given us thousands of people eating Prozac and Ritalin in order to remain calm, productive citizens. Caffeine is legal because it keeps people going longer and more alert at work. The combination of these two drugs makes a person very calm and passive, while at the same time capable of high-speed work and long hours. This chemical engineering has created the perfect employee, or as corporations are fond of saying, Human Resource. The term Human Resource is used because people are no longer people, but a source of capital used only to further production. Factories train people to perform one simple task that does not take any thought so that they are easily replaceable. Offices train workers with the same idea in mind. Computers have made people very replaceable. No one seems to remember that we were promised that technology would decrease workloads and increase recreation. We were all told how the efficiency of machines would make our lives better. Instead massive layoffs occurred and the remaining employees were given longer hours. Less people now work harder in order to increase corporate profits. It is not only in the workplace that technology has taken over our lives. Television has replaced books in the home. MTV and CNN now give us our values. People sit and watch it constantly, brain dead, sucking in propaganda. The television bombards homes with images of happy people with money driving new cars and wearing expensive suits. Television tells us that if we become like them then we will have happiness. And many people buy into this cycle of consumer-production and work longer hours in order to buy more junk that they don’t need. A person used to go to school merely to learn. Now the goal is not so much education, but to get a degree and a good job, so that they can fulfill their part of the American dream. People have come to be defined by their possessions and become prisoners of what they own. Work and buy, produce and consume. This is what is presented to us as the answer. This is what has been given to us as the goal. Thus has technology begun to define our lives. Science tells us that which cannot be measured does not exist. But apply this rule to science. Where is science? What is its mass, its dimensions or energy? When its rules are applied to itself, science disappears. This is because science and technology are tools that should be used in order to gain control over our natural environment. They have broken out of this role and now control our society. Science and technology are beasts that have broken their leashes. Life is now defined by materialism, thus the science that has given us the capabilities for these possessions is looked to for a meaning to existence. But seeking answers is not a good pastime for a streamlined Human Resource. Thus we are given all the entertainment that a person could ask for. Video games, television, movies, and professional sports are provided to occupy our time. There is so much entertainment that no one has time to stop and ask what the point is. Our musicians, actors and athletes have become our heroes and we pay them more than anyone else in our country. We idolize them for keeping us distracted while we slave for corporations. We are told what to wear by television, we are told what to listen to by the radio, we are told how to work by the corporations, and we are told how to think by the media. We are censored, cut off, and controlled. It is all about control. The government and corporations work together to make everyone a machine. Technology is a tool in this. Technology is what makes this possible. So, is technology evil? No. But in our society it is used for control and must be put back in its place in order for anyone to regain their human dignity. Until then, we will never have true freedom. |
| Technology and our Culture |
| This is a transcript of a speech I made on March 28th, 2002 at a forum at my college. |