Innovate or Introspect?

Harry Scherer
Class of 2022

(10/2019) "Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards." This is the case, at least for 20th century writer Aldous Huxley. In this quote, Huxley mentions the concepts of technology, progress, regress and the relationship between these three meaningful ideas. As we live through the technological revolution, it is important for us to consider these concepts with even greater intention.

The cultural age of rapid technological advancement was germinated and continues to grow without very much intentionality or reflection. One of the symptoms of this lack of concern is evident today in an apparent inability to communicate interpersonally. The public square is cluttered with insults and attacks because of a fundamental misunderstanding of what "the other" truly believes and desires. Our political debates quickly derail into raucous fights because of a lack of clarity and a great discomfort in opponents giving each other the benefit of the doubt.

Technology certainly plays a great role in this interpersonal disconnect. Technological advancement, though, is a symptom of our discomfort with intrapersonal communication. The culture demands that we only think about ourselves, or if we think about others it is so that we may further satisfy our self-esteem. Within this warped philosophy is a poor understanding of who we are supposed to be.

Consider, for example, the vocation of a mother. Her calling is to painfully bear children in her womb for nine months and then dedicate her life to their growth with undistracted attention for years. A true mother is a giving woman who does not live for herself or her betterment, but for that of her children. True and good mothers raise good men and women.

How does this definition fit with the cultural expectation that we live primarily for our own benefit? They are immediately at odds with one another. The caring mother can only be so if she, in the words of Socrates, knows herself. She has to understand the limits of her patience, the extent of her energy and the scope of her knowledge. Without a penetrating self-awareness, the mother yields ineffective to the children into whose care she has been placed.

It seems that there is a crucial misunderstanding today about the purpose of living for God and the other after a painful understanding of oneself. This cultural phenomenon is made evident when contrasted to the suffering involved in the monastic life. I spent about a week over the summer with the Trappist monks of New Melleray Abbey in Peosta, Iowa. At the retreat-seminar properly entitled the Monastic Wisdom Seminar, one of the monks said, "that’s the tough thing. You have to look yourself right in the mirror." The monastic life is an other-centered life, contrary to the belief that it is an escape from the troubles of the world. The hours of time spent in silence and meditation seem to inevitably lead to the mirror effect which the monk succinctly expressed.

The rapid technologization of the past 70 years indicates a symptom of our discomfort with looking inward. This makes sense based on our anthropology and our nature because looking inward requires that we examine our failures as much as our successes, our sorrows as much as our joys and our vices as much as our virtues. Because sin infects our human nature, a discomfort with a radical introspection is not specific to our generation or century. Rather, it seems that our blind obsession with technological advancement, regardless of the cost, is the way in which our generation responds to this perennial discomfort.

After we have found that it is better to live for God and others by recognizing who we are, it would be appropriate to describe some cultural effects of either being ignorant of this precept or disregarding it altogether. The habit of walking around with earbuds in, for example, has become easier with the invention of AirPods. This is an example of a technological advancement which was created for the sake of convenience and comfort but has little function other than tuning out every sound that is going on around us except for the song we want to listen to. Events as seemingly trivial as listening to the birds chirp or the traffic wiz by has been discarded because of the self-interested habit.

Another example of a needless technological innovation is the ability for us, students, to see our grades at any time during the semester. Just because it is easily possible to allow us to follow along with our progress on a numeric basis does not mean that it is preferable. Data-driven administrators are encouraged by the feature because they are better able to track how we perform throughout the semester compared with other data which is being collected about us, but students are left limiting the value of their education to a number which increases and decreases through the weeks. This constant attention which is given to grades does not lead to an increase in knowledge, but an increase in emphasis which is placed on the game of succeeding in school. Much like the prevalent trend to disregard standardized testing because the examinations do not test knowledge, but rather the ability to take tests, the constant ability to track grades makes students more intent on cunningly overcoming the obstacles of schoolwork, rather than pursuing growth in knowledge, wisdom and understanding.

The disregard for external surroundings which is made evident in the incredibly popularity of AirPods and the shift in the purpose of secondary and higher education are two unfortunate symptoms of our understandable discomfort with introspection. In 2019, technology is our medication to overcome and distract from this discomfort. Regardless of our influence in the tangible world of technology, we are called to overcome our cultural malaise and respond with the example of the best mother we know with a look inside so that we may better serve for the other.

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