Blind faith in Technolgy? Hardly
Although author Bill Joy declares himself not to be a Luddite,
his article "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us" raises interesting
questions about humanity's use of technology and its continuing
progression. Joy worries that humans are not concerned enough
with the ever-increasing rise of human dependency on modern
technology. Through examination of pop culture, specifically
movies and books (The Time Machine by H. G. Wells,
Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, and Jurassic
Park (1993), of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, I
believe we have become more aware of the encroachment of
technology in our everyday lives.
The advent of mainstream science fiction novels is the first
indication of the awareness of the ever-increasing role of
technology in our lives. Authors dared to imagine the what-ifs
of science, imagining worlds far beyond ours, or our own,
twisted and unrecognizable in the far distant future. H. G.
Wells published The Time Machine in 1895; at the time it
was the first novel about time travel and one of the forerunners
of the sci-fi genre. One of the themes of this novel comes out
in the Time Traveller's awareness "of blind faith in scientific
progress"(PinkMonkey.com). Because of the ineptness of the Eloi
and the wasteland that is the Earth, he wonders if such
technological progress will eventually lead to our downfall.
A few decades later J. R. R. Tolkien wrote and published his
Lord of the Rings epic. Set in a world resembling
pre-Industrial England, the One Ring, in one interpretation,
represents the potential dangers of technology. Gandalf, an
unquestionably good and wise character even resists taking the
Ring because "[i]n evil hands it might have done great evil . .
. [a]nd over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and
more deadly" (Tolkien 66-67). With the power of the One Ring,
the evil warlord Sauron would be able to take over the world;
paralleling the use of weapons of mass destructions in the hands
of people like Hitler, Saddam Hussein, and Osama Bin Ladan.
In 1993, Spielberg's movie Jurassic Park rocketed into
theaters, casting a spell on moviegoers all over the world with
the dinosaurs that seemed so lifelike that it was hard to
believe they were either robots or computer generated. Aside
from entertainment, the movie also raises important questions
about the ethics of scientific discovery. Drs. Alan Grant and
Ian Malcolm soon get over their initial awe of actually seeing
dinosaurs and start to wonder if their creation had been a right
move. Malcolm, particularly, is not shy about presenting his
views: "Don't you see the danger inherent? . . . Genetic power
is the most awesome force the planet has ever seen but you [John
Hammond] wield it like a kid who found his dad's gun." When Mr.
Hammond, played by Richard Attenborough, replies testily, "How
can we stand in the light of discovery and not act?" Malcolm is
ready with a response: "What you call discovery, I call the rape
of the natural world." One of the most important lines, again
spoken by Malcolm, is the issue of whether or not the technology
even should have been used: "[The] scientists were so
preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to
think if they should." In Malcolm's mind the so-called objective
science cannot afford to ignore the ethics of using technology.
As the movie progresses and all the viewers see that creating
dinosaurs was definitely not a good thing, the viewers too are
led to believe that not all scientific progress is good.
Despite Bill Joy's worries, modern movies and books show that
humans are aware of the increasing role of technology in our
lives but we would do well to pay better attention.
Works Cited
Jurassic Park. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Perf. Sam Neill and
Richard Attenborough. MCA/Universal Home Video, 1993.
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the
Ring. 1955. New York: Ballantine Books, 1993
Horn, Jessica. PinkMonkey.com. The Time Machine. 15 November
2003.