J
Justin_Swanton
Guest
I’ve though a lot about this. The whole driving force behind our contemporary techno-industrial society is the quest for material improvement, and the driving force behind the quest for material improvement is the subconscious notion that if we don’t rebuild Eden here on this earth, our lives will be failures.
Fundamentally, this notion has to be a selfish one, as the quest for happiness that lies in a quest for material improvement ultimately must become egocentric. Why is that? Because the people who contribute most to the material betterment of society are the first to benefit materially. I invent something that is a technological improvement to people’s lives. What do I do with the invention? Make money of course. I invent a light bulb, a radio, a car, an aeroplane. Do I selflessly offer it to humanity and remain content with my modest material lot? Like hell. It sets a tone. The successful people, the great Improvers, are those who are successful for themselves first.
Compare this to the Catholic religious orders founded to help the poor. They did not try to advance the cause of Progress. They just helped the people who came their way with the means at their disposal. They knew that people do not need material progress, they just need the basic necessities of life, necessities that were available long before the Industrial Revolution.
Ancient and Mediaeval society had no greater a percentage of desperate poverty than the modern world. People lived simpler lives, sure, but by and large they had what they needed. Pre-industrial society was not an endless progression of grinding, heart-rending, backbreaking poverty. Most people were farm tenants, living in their own cottages on land owned by a feudal lord who took a tithe of their harvests but otherwise left them alone. The family structures of the village community took care of most individuals, and the Church took care of the rest. Destitution was no more common then than now. I would even say it was rarer.
The modern world is different. Society is now a huge industrial machine in which the place of the individual is far more uncertain than in the past. Employment depends on a constantly shifting economic climate. A few people get too greedy at Wall Street and millions are jobless. There is a sense that it’s every man for himself. If you can’t hack it you’re out. In the past if you couldn’t hack it somebody took care of you. Actually, you could hack it fine.
Is there any radical cure for this? I don’t think so. So long as people believe that technology is somehow necessary to supply needs that a far more primitive society filled perfectly adequately, the problem will continue. Material progress will continue, paradoxically, to breed material uncertainty and misery.
Fundamentally, this notion has to be a selfish one, as the quest for happiness that lies in a quest for material improvement ultimately must become egocentric. Why is that? Because the people who contribute most to the material betterment of society are the first to benefit materially. I invent something that is a technological improvement to people’s lives. What do I do with the invention? Make money of course. I invent a light bulb, a radio, a car, an aeroplane. Do I selflessly offer it to humanity and remain content with my modest material lot? Like hell. It sets a tone. The successful people, the great Improvers, are those who are successful for themselves first.
Compare this to the Catholic religious orders founded to help the poor. They did not try to advance the cause of Progress. They just helped the people who came their way with the means at their disposal. They knew that people do not need material progress, they just need the basic necessities of life, necessities that were available long before the Industrial Revolution.
Ancient and Mediaeval society had no greater a percentage of desperate poverty than the modern world. People lived simpler lives, sure, but by and large they had what they needed. Pre-industrial society was not an endless progression of grinding, heart-rending, backbreaking poverty. Most people were farm tenants, living in their own cottages on land owned by a feudal lord who took a tithe of their harvests but otherwise left them alone. The family structures of the village community took care of most individuals, and the Church took care of the rest. Destitution was no more common then than now. I would even say it was rarer.
The modern world is different. Society is now a huge industrial machine in which the place of the individual is far more uncertain than in the past. Employment depends on a constantly shifting economic climate. A few people get too greedy at Wall Street and millions are jobless. There is a sense that it’s every man for himself. If you can’t hack it you’re out. In the past if you couldn’t hack it somebody took care of you. Actually, you could hack it fine.
Is there any radical cure for this? I don’t think so. So long as people believe that technology is somehow necessary to supply needs that a far more primitive society filled perfectly adequately, the problem will continue. Material progress will continue, paradoxically, to breed material uncertainty and misery.