EXACTLY!!! That wonderful father of the postmodern, Martin Heidegger,
wrote an essay called "The Question Concerning Technology" in which he
argues that the essence of technology will come to dominate our
existence. The essence of technology is the will to power, the ability
to control. We developed our technology in order to control our world,
to control ouir lives, but this essence has become a framework for our
lives. He says that we are "enframed" by technology, that as much as we
use it to control our world, its essence of control will come to control
us. We will go from being the masters to being the slaves of
technology. Once created, the framework of technology will enframe
mankind-- technology's "way to truth," that of control, of power will
become the *only* way to truth.
Heidegger argues that art is a way to escape from this framework
because its way of thinking is not technical, but poetical. I'm not too
sure that I buy this "way out," What do ya'll think? Can art lead us
out of our destiny as slaves to technology? I have heard a few other
philosophers respond that whatever problems technology brings us, their
only solution is... more technology. But this seems to say that we are
stuck, and give up the ghost.
My own opinion is that it is not a terrible thing to live in an age of
technology. What is technology but a tool? Is Heidegger saying that
tools are bad? What about language, another tool, is it damaging? The
reality is that we are "enframed" by a lot of things, not all of them as
horrible, or as absolute as Heidegger says. What does everyone else
think?
Carter
P.S. If anybody out there is a heidegger scholar or anything please
don't flame me, I tried to give the best understanding that I could of a
rather difficult essay. If I missed anything important let me us all
know.