89

TECHNOLOGY

I've always been fond of travel. I don't see how anyone setting forth the philoso-
phical pretensions I am in these pages could make claim to such wisdom without having
seen a variety of cultures and places. If one of the attributes of a good philosopher is to
have gotten about a bit, at least I qualify on that account.

I recently went to my local travel agent to secure passage away from the usual
tedium of my every day existence. Today's travel agency bears little resemblance to the
one of just ten years ago. It now more resembles some kind of strategic air command
bunker swimming in the electronic wizardry we generally associate with underground
war rooms and nuclear attacks. It seems that such pulsating gadgetry is now essential if
one is to fly from point A to point B.

i'm not convinced of this.

Going to the travel agent is never a routine experience for me. I've finally begun
to understand why this is so: these enclaves of technological ostentation are only set to
work smoothly if you are going to Disneyland or Las Vegas. What's more, you must be
going for such respectably measured time frames as a weekend, a week, or 14 days
and 13 nights. If you are one of the masses that form this travel minion, it is amazing
what kind of bang you will get for your buck: they'll throw in a car, various complimen-
tary steaks and baked potatoes, a trip to Snake World, a floor show full of girls dressed
only in a piece of string, etc. etc. (drinks not included).

If you are one of the subversive characters that fall outside these parameters,
your airline ticket will cost about the same as the down payment on a house. You will
then have to change planes in Orlando, Atlanta, New York, London, Frankfurt and who
knows what other global economy air hub, before flnally arriving to your destination in a
blood shot daze at one in the morning. Unfortunately, the one piece of luggage you had
the guts to check is spinning patiently on a carousel in Las Vegas.

Predictably, I fall into the latter category and the high tech, war room scenario
has done little to lessen my burden.

My recent trip to the travel agent was typical. It all started innocently enough with
a smiling young girl asking how she could help me. As I sketched my itinerary, the smile
began to fade and the barest hint of a furl began insinuating itself into her forehead.
With a noticeable lack of aplomb, she turned to her green-faced computer and settled
into a frenzied attack on the keyboard worthy of anything I'd ever seen from Liberace.
As she feverishly pecked away, I could not help noticing the rest of the office, which
danced to a rhythm of machines hissing, belching, flashing and clacking away on all
sides. Unattended organisms of metal and plastic were spitting out fully completed tick-
ets to, undoubtedly, Las Vegas and Disneyland. I could only sit and marvel as I awaited
my fate.

Eventually, after what seemed to be an interminable interlude of grunts, sighs,
and other ambiguous sounds and punctuations not befitting the respectable girl attend-
ing me, an unintelligible string of letters resembling a series of Polish surnames without
enough vowels, began flashing on the screen. Much to my amazement, the young girl
knew exactly what it meant; it meant I was screwed and we had to start again.

At this point I must defend myself. Although my itinerary was not the "Wally
World" one so comfortably serviced by our travel industry, I was not going to anywhere
so remote as the dark side of the moon or Youngstown, Ohio. I am not on any National
Geographic assignment in search of the almost extinct Panda-Koala, last seen in the
shrouded mists of the Himalayan headwaters of the Yangtze River. I was simply trying
to get to a well-known island in the Mediterranean Sea.

To make a long story even longer, I spent the next hour sitting patiently, examin-
ing brochures for Club Med, golf getaways, Busch Gardens, Mardi Gras, tennis camps,
and other such respectable destinations where they really want you to go, while the un-
fortunate young lady working on my case tried to crack it. As the lunch hour ap-
proached, I could feel the tension rising. Phone calls were made, the boss was con-
sulted, and the athletic rhapsody on the computer keyboard continued. There were even
moments of delirious expectation --- at one point we thought we had it at a remarkably
low price, but the bubble burst when we found the deal only applied on a Leap Year for
those of Cherokee descent. It was finally decided, by mutual consent, that I'd return in
two days, when the verdict would be rendered.

It's moments like this when I begin to feel, down to the deepest pith of my con-
sciousness, the insanity of our occidental life style. This feeling is not contned to travel
agents. Each year I regularly attend a big time professional tennis tournament held near
my home. Tennis scoreboards used to be manually operated, a perfectly reasonable
method considering the pace at which tennis scores change. Now all the scoreboards
are computerized extravaganzas that break down or malfunction with dependable punc-
tuality. This lunacy extends to banks, supermarkets, ticket agencies and a whole host of
places where the 215t century has already arrived. Sometimes I have to blink or pinch
myseif ... then I have to ask if I'm getting in and out of these places with more facility
than in the "old days".

I'm not against technology. But there is a fine line between using it rationally to
secure our well-being and using it recklessly in a way that becomes destructive. Our
technological accomplishments are running way ahead of our ability to improve our-
selves emotionally. This is a dangerous combination.

The problem with technology is that its development and utilization are under the
almost complete dominion of the "Business Tyranny" (see essay "The Revolution and
Capitalism"). The motor that drives it all is the incentive to make money. It's not unrea-
sonable to say that this arrangement has spurred on the spectacular success we've had
in this area, but it is time to step back and reassess. This incentive to develop technol-
ogy based purely on doing business is becoming very destructive. We are burning nox-
ious fuels in unnecessary quantities, we are creating unhealthy amounts of waste, we
are destroying important animal habitat, we are clearing forests and jungles that provide
ecological functions, just as the filled in marshes and swamps do. If we cannot find a
way to advance our technologies without resorting purely to the degrading incentive to
make money, then I'm afraid we will not reach any higher evolutionary realization as a
species. We have made this incentive to make money the focal point, the centerpiece,
the foundation of our system of values. It is beginning to have a corrosive effect on our
personalities. If the amounts of anti-sociai behavior our society now spawns are border-
ing on the unacceptable, it's not because we've moved away from some simple minded
concept of God, or that our families are breaking apart, or that our kids are seeing too
many hairy genitals, or some other flat headed, Bill Bennett kind of chicken soup
pseudo-wisdom. No!

It's because we have given ourselves over, almost exclusively, to "doing business".

If we cannot eventually transcend this way of motivating ourselves and find a more
altruistic, rational road to technological development, it will end up consuming us.

And the Great Pyramids will lie in ruins once again.

Relevant material: "Julio Senador warned us at the beginning of this century
(meaning the 20~ century), referring himself to Castilla, that each tree sacrificed was
another step towards misery and tyranny." From the book, "Un Mundo que Agoniza"
(A World in Agony), by the Spaniard, Miguel Delibes.

"You will remember that one or two wise men amongst our ancestors (wise men truly,
although not in the estimation of the world) dared to doubt the propriety of the word
"progress" applied to the advancement of our civilization ( ... and believed in) principles
that would have taught our species to submit itself to the natural laws instead of trying
to intervene." From the short story "Discussion Between Monos and Una", by the
tortured genius, Edgar Allen Poe.

"No fighting in the War Rooml" Uttered by the President of the United States (Peter
Sellers) in the great movie, "Dr. Strangelove".