I used to think...technology was benign — its downsides limited to man’s use of it.
But, now, I suspect that the soulless nature of technology is a problem. Everything is part of the soul of existence (including humanity) — collectively and individually. Technology, including man’s use of it, often removes the soul from things.
For example, while more recently technology has created opportunities for connection, it doesn’t create belonging. People want connection, but they need a sense of belonging. Technology doesn’t work at that level of things. In fact, it seems to undermine it, in part because it can only offer a facsimile of it...not the real thing.
The strange thing is that when humans are so desperate for belonging they will gravitate to nearly anything that simply appears to offer it. Whether it is a genuine (or even a good) version of it or not. The extent to which people will pursue it is nearly terrifying. Not only because of the substitutionary versions we seem willing to accept, but also because the predatory context it creates for those willing to appeal to it. We can even accept a version that simply describes who we don't want to connect with as means of falsifying a sense of who we do connect with (whether we actually do in any substantively human way or not).
Technology enables the proliferation of these realities.
We can try to bifurcate things by distinguishing between the mechanism and the content, but in the end they really just go together. Throw a profit motive into the mix and you can have some pretty nasty stuff that really isn't offset by the non-nasty stuff.
Profit and technology are too often complicit in their respective and mutually inclusive goals. Because true goodness can't really be monetized (even if facsimiles of it can), it remains independent. But, it is not too hard to observe that technology tends to mitigate the experience of what is truly good.
We don't really even need to get into what happens when we lose our soul, do we? Or, do we (because from the looks of things, maybe we do)?
We love technology that makes our lives easier. But, what if we don't need much more of easier right now. What if we need what is actually better? Especially things that technology is painfully incapable of delivering
...like the kind of goodness that only soul can identify.
