TECHNOLOGY – FRIEND OR FOE?

Spirituality In the Pub Feb 22 Penrith

Peter Maher

I love technology – where would I be without a knife, fork and spoon; hot and cold water; a house and household goods; my car; the phone; the movies, a computer, that magic wine bottle opener thingy and my latest party trick – the motorized pepper grinder thoughtfully given to me as a Christmas gift. Without technology I would not enjoy what I have come to know as the necessities of life – health, education, local government services; social services, community services and play. Everything I touch for life, work and play involves the creativity and imagination of cratftspeople, inventors, artisans, engineers and technicians. All these people armed with loads of technology provide excellent products and services at affordable prices. This enables me to live a joyfilled and healthy life around loving and supportive relationships supported by incredibly efficient means of communication and ever widening possibilities for celebration. I enjoy the ability to communicate, write, develop networks, publish and store information at rates unimaginable when I was ordained 30 years ago when a typewriter and a gestetner were the advanced technology of evangelisation and celebration.

Today my work in the parish includes email access; publishing a weekly bulletin in hardcopy and to an email list; accurate information storage and accountable account keeping; producing professional documents, rosters and flyers in up to A3 size from our $200 colour printer; an answering machine I can access from my second job and baptism record access by typing in the surname to the excel spreadsheet. And that’s just to mention a few ways technology makes my increasingly bureaucratic job easier.

My other job as chaplain at the University of Technology Sydney would be unthinkable without the computer generated evangelisation possibilities of email; the internet; regularly updated websites; publishing of documents, speeches, liturgies, flyers and brochures; phone and fax access; egroups; national and international networks supported by the instant communication of chat rooms and not in the least the multistorey car park – essential for inner city living and working.

The advances in technology have brought us almost infinite possibilities for making money; spending money; sharing information; learning; creating better and safer consumerables; more and cheaper travel; developing research and recreational tools; staying in touch with family and friends; developing home-based publishing, instant communication and data transfer; developing networks; storing information; entertainment and celebrating with family, friends, local community, interest groups and the faith community.

Technology now touches everything we do at work, at home or recreationally. Its not just that a computer is now essential for every desk – work, home and school, but it is increasingly part of our entertainment whether we play a computer game or go to the gym. Not only will we be likely to use a readable membership card wherever we play or recreate but the equipment is also computerized in one way or another. Everything we do from shopping to driving the car or booking a holiday is highly dependent on sophisticated technology.

In the midst of this rampant technological advance we see something strange. There is growing isolation and alienation. The information sought and peddled in our Western democracies is increasingly packaged to placate the public as we unwittingly serve the vested interests of the wealthy and powerful. Manufacturing consent, Noam Chomsky’s chilling idea of nearly twenty years ago, is visible today in Western governments such as our own. We can be lied to successfully – the war in Iraq, Tampa, mandatory detention and the Australian Wheat Board serve as obvious examples. While spin doctors create an illusion around Industrial reform, security legislation, health, education and tax. Somehow we consent by re-electing the government that imposed these things on us. While this problem is very complex, let me make the point that none of this is possible without the sophisticated technology of the mass media through which the people’s consent is gained. While this is an example of technology used for manipulation of ideas and to serve vested interests; it is also true that technology is being used more and more as a counter measure by grass roots organisations.

The internet can be a cheap and efficient tool for accessing accurate information from alternate sources; developing grass-roots movements and networks and developing new strategies and sharing ideas. Texting brought down Marcos in the Philippines in a non-violent coup. The internationally coordinated protest against the Iraq war that brought millions onto the streets in capitals and small towns around the world could not have been organised without the internet - a cheap and efficient means of global communication. New websites can be developed cheaply to share information often excluded by mainstream media.

Is there no end to the technological essentials for justice work, ministry, evangelisation and indeed living? Could not Jesus have come to this world in a time of mass communication to deliver his message more effectively? In the last few reflections, I have begun to recognise the complexities of technology and that there may be a downside to this wonderland of technology. Well - what of the limitations!

I am one of those people that also struggles with technology. The instruction book to operate the phone now runs at the size of a small novel. The mobile phone instruction book which I recently navigated due to my capitulation to join the mobile phone club, is the size of the average novel. But you can’t even buy a toaster, fan or torch without some instructions on the various options open to the wide eyed proud new owner. A new car comes with an instruction manual to bamboozle the best 18 year old and that’s just for the sound system. But the grand daddy of them all is the computer. Not only do you get a small encyclopaedic set of instruction manuals to cover each module of your system and for each loaded software program but you get libraries of help information whilst running the program; plus even more (including updates) online.

Technology can be difficult for the educated but there is a serious gap occurring between the haves and the have-nots – at least as serious as the basic question of poverty itself. The single most frightening technological statistic is the disparity between the technological rich and poor. The New Economy Revisited survey of 300 disadvantaged families in Australia with children at home (conducted by the Smith Family, 2002) showed that less than 60 per cent of these families had a computer at home, compared with 74 per cent of all Australian households with children at home. The Earth Trends website notes that in 2003 Denmark and Japan had almost 80% of homes with computers while Laos and Eritrea had .2 of 1%. The United Nations website notes that most African nations were under 1% in 2003.

There are a myriad of complex ethical questions involved in the technological advances in medical; reproductive and genetically modified research and development. I will not enter this minefield in detail here except to note that there is a serious ethical question for Australians who have a high take up rate of technological advances. Apart from the ethical questions about the research procedures, we must also ask if these procedures can be justified in a world where 50 % of the population live on less than $2 a day. Certainly these procedures will add to the consumer imbalance where 20% of the population of the world’s developed nations use 86% of the world’s resources. Genetically modified foods that held out hope for feeding the world’s poor have simply lined the purses of those who developed them leaving the peasant farmer unable to afford the patented seed; unable to compete; without an income for his family and forced to migrate to the city to try to find work. This often results in a series of undesirable outcomes such as homelessness; high infant mortality; lack of clean water, food or sanitary conditions; sending the children to work or beg and criminality born of spiralling poverty. (see Global Issues website)

Other problems associated with the boom in technology include the effect the environment; global warming and some would even say there is evidence to suggest that technological advance does not make us happier, wealthier; healthier, wiser or more human. There is growing evidence to suggest the way some technologies erode human interaction could be negatively affecting all these outcomes. Anecdotes of office communication about the morning coffee and “how are you” enquiries through email between people at adjacent desks seem to be no longer urban myths.

We must be prepared to critique technological advances not only for the ethics of the new possibilities for scientific and social consummerables, even recognising some are health related; but we must question the way this continues to advantage the already rich and powerful and extend the gap between rich and poor.

However the question of what makes us whole, free and more human individuals; what improves our social cohesion, creates civil society and interpersonal communication and what creates community for work and play takes us onto the next step of spirituality. Technology could be a major barrier to personal spiritual growth. It is not unusual for me to spend hours each working day writing and reading emails and surfing websites. Besides taking me into the solitary world of words, there is the danger of addiction (and that’s without any untoward website activity). It is just as easy to be addicted to Online Catholics and Cath News as it is to a porn site. The material may pose different moral questions but the addiction or need to engage in this activity may be equally dangerous to my spirituality which must ultimately have as its touchstone the “formation of the heart” as Pope Benedict says in his first encyclical. This requires both the challenge of human interaction and creating space for integration. The advances in communication can be devoid of both these. As a student wrote to me in recent email – “I find it hard to talk about these issues in an email. I prefer to wait till we can meet.”

I acknowledge that much can be gained from the internet to help in spiritual formation but we might be cautious about it replacing the interpersonal challenge or allowing technology to seduce us into thinking information can replace space for integration.

Ultimately spiritual reality is deeply connected with who we are – with our identity. Ultimately it is in personal and interpersonal integrity with our self, community and God that forms our identity as fully human. There is a danger in the world of advancing technology that Descartes’ rationalist wisdom “I think therefore I am” may become “I compute therefore I am”. Then technology would threaten our very existence as fully human – mind/body/spirit beings.