OK. I'll bite. While I agree on your general characterizations, what I
want to know is, how do we interpret our stay in the Garden of Eden where
we are 1) cast in God's image and 2) put in charge of all the animals. I
agree there's a boundary to 'control' somewhere and, indeed, to even think
of it as 'control' is to 'go dyadic' and miss it - but where's the
boundary?
> reliable and dependable ways....'atoms for peace'....that was supposed to get
> the genie back in the bottle......its still out there somewhere.....<G>
The same can be said of gasoline or any technological advance. But to
play Devil's Advocate, how many people have been killed by atom bombs?
How many have been killed by napalm? More people died in the fire bombing
of Tokyo and Dresden. What makes Nagasaki so important? Walker Percy was
always fond of having Tom Moore read about WWI battles where casualties
were in the millions. One could argue atom bombs are a good thing because
they at least force us to realize how interconnected our actions are.
It's virtually impossible to launch them without bringing terror down on
yourself (though freelance terrorism poses a problem).
I think the ultimate problem with technology is, we all get it. It gives
us greater and greater power over our world and, hence our own physical
body. I know this may irritate the orthodox Catholics out there but,
what's wrong with cloning or artificial insemination? Enough alcohol is a
pretty effective birth control device. Should we see it in that capacity?
What ends are we to apply technology? What ways should we change
ourselves? Walker Percy touched on a very important part of the
'mind-body' problem, but I think to see it as just 'mind-body' is to
completely miss the God 'problem,' the transcendence. I bring up
reproductive taboos because it seems to me that this edge of technology is
in some ways irrelevant. There are always new ethical dilemmas to face.
Science is always making us both more powerful over the physical world and
over our fellow human beings (remember that misplaced ';' that caused
phone service to go out for a day?). It's just 'stuff.' It matters.
It's clear it matter to God in the Garden. It's clear we've bitten from
the apple. But how are we to understand all this.
I bring it up, not because I wish to criticize but because I myself don't
know. I've always been troubled by Paul's advice to the early church on
vegetarianism. I forget what book it's in but it says something to the
effect of nothing in and of itself is inherently bad unless we make it so
or cause it to lead to the downfall of our bretheren.
How are we to understand such a powerful statement?
Worse, how are we 'responsible' for our bretheren like the Oklahouma
bomber who put technology to such tragic ends? Who show us how much
'stuff' can matter? This is, I think, the worst danger we face in the
responsible use of technology.
> I think that language such as this is a classic example of the way in which
> dyadic thought, not only denies humans insight into the transcendent
> character of human life, but also endangers mankind by making accurate
> practical moral judgements much harder...something I think Percy recognized
I agree and yet something still troubles me about this, as if the moral
judgment shouldn't just be a reaction (maybe)? as if it should be prior?
or have no relation to the technology? That's not quite right either...
Oh well. That's life. As Paul Valery said, "The future's not what it
used to be."
Wade