EXCERPT: Perhaps you saw the same AP headline I did: “Nevada couple stranded three days after GPS leads them astray.” It seems they asked for the shortest route from Portland to Reno, and they got it – but their machine, while full of instant data, was mindless enough to recommend an unsafe, snow-bound road.
Me thinks a parable lurks therein! And with everyone trying to pick a name for the decade that ends this week, perhaps this story offers an apt theme.
It has something to do with technology and our response to it—or, more accurately, our responses.
There are, of course, those people who embrace every new technological advance with gusto – the folks who had home TVs in the 1940s, video cameras by 1970, a $700 single-disc CD player by 1983, a car phone by 1990, and a $4000, 30-inch HDTV by 2000.
Then there are the people who militantly resist every innovation. They clung to black & white TV, to dial phones, they have no use for snow blowers or dishwashers or cell phones.
The first group bought Apple computers in 1982; the second group still holds the line against e-mail.
Most of us, I suspect, are somewhere in between. We neither race into new things nor resist them on principle. We don’t need to be the first kid on our block. We’re content to wait until new technologies prove their worth. We know they often need debugging, and we prefer not to play the role of guinea pig. We guess that subsequent versions will be not only better but also cheaper. And we even suspect that some innovations will eventually either fail or prove actually harmful. So we never went for Edsels or 8-track tapes or Fen-Phen or sub-prime mortgages.
Yet we embrace proven technologies with prudent optimism. We start emailing, while remaining alert to spam and viruses. We buy hybrids, but know that batteries remain underdeveloped. We love the way computers transmit data at the speed of light, but we never forget that they’re still stupid machines. We experiment with voice-recognition software, but chuckle wryly when it types Ratzinger as “rap singer” or Jesus as “cheeses.”
My own humble opinion is that this middle way is not merely moderate, it is also wise.
In fact, a strain throughout Christian history – or at least Catholic history – has been to display mixed feelings about technology in general. Given the Christian view of the world, this makes perfect sense. Since all technology comes from human intelligence and our drive to subdue creation to our benefit, we regarded as potentially a gift (albeit indirect) from God. But since every technology is a human product, it is never perfect, and its flaws may outweigh its benefits.
No humans in history have ever needed this wisdom more than our present generations.
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