Vox Nova

Part 1

“Modern science, having progressively become techno-science – the product of the fatal confusion between the operational instrument and exploratory research - has slipped its philosophical moorings and lost its way, without anyone taking umbrage at this, except for a few ecological and religious leaders.”[1] In one sentence, Virilio points out an important fact: ecological and religious leaders are among the few who criticize a modernistic scientific enterprise based entirely upon the pursuit of knowledge without any moral restraint. They rightfully question the ethical behavior behind our research practices, as well as the implications of our research if they are put to use.[2] Ecologists and Christian pro-life activists have much in common. They are  both often considered fanatical, and anti-progressive, because of the questions they ask about our society. Both find their concerns too hastily dismissed, which then encourages them to act up in desperation, beyond all prudence. Is it any surprise that such actions solidify the negative image given to them by the media, when they act according to their emotions, without thinking of the best way to handle the situation?[3] They often have to deal with the same root questions, the same moral difficulties brought about by our current, empirical-materialist worship of the science. Sadly, they rarely understand this. Far too few of them work together, which is what is necessary if we want to restore proper ethical debate as a prerequisite for any scientific research.[4] 

Indeed,  instead of working together, members of such rival activist traditions often clash, one with another, because the demands of one group often infringes upon the personal desires of the people involved with the other. Issue-based activism which does not recognize the self-sacrifice we must engage if we want to improve the world will never suffice; selfishness is one of the root causes which ecologists and pro-lifers both have to fight against, especially when it is their own. The consequences of ecological disasters should be reason enough for pro-lifers to work with ecologists; instead, they show the root selfishness of the individuals involved, because they try to find any and all excuses to keep the status quo instead of investing for the future and realizing the status quo cannot be kept indefinitely without earth-shattering consequences. It would appear that a pro-lifer who fails to acknowledge their debt to the earth and the need they have to keep it and preserve it is being idolatrous, for their concern is to themselves first, and they show this self-worship by the words the speak. They are only willing to do only that which does not greatly interfere with their own livelihood. But the same is true with ecologists who oppose pro-lifers. They find being pro-life would require sacrifices they do not want to make, and so, the worship is not of the earth (as is often claimed) but the self; the reason why they are concerned about the fate of the earth is the negative consequences its destruction would have on their own wellbeing.   

Interestingly enough, even though they should know better, because of the demonization they often face from the media, activists often fall for the media bias and criticism given to other groups without thinking the criticism through and finding out its logical failure. How often do we find pro-lifers, who are called “religious radicals,” use such a label for those concerned about ecology, even going so far as to say ecologists “worship the earth?”  Pro-lifers, as Pope John Paul II has pointed out, should be every bit as concerned about the fate of the earth and what is going on upon it as ecologists are (if not more so, because of the status they give to human life). But the same should give ecologists pause. What is it that makes the pro-lifer “radical”? What is it that unites the two? It is because both are going against the grain. 

Clearly, the world we live in is filled with all kinds of problems. Each age has different ones to deal with, and humanity, with its brilliance, often finds some sort of solution to them, but, to be sure, so many of our solutions end up creating new, and more difficult problems to solve.  This is because we don’t always solve the problem, but we either hide it from view or to displace it, letting others suffer the consequences of the problem. But this just makes the problem worse, and indeed, given time, it could break the system which we have established open and leave us more confused than ever before. This is, in part, because of our methodology. We want the fastest and easiest to execute solution we can find. This means we do not give ourselves enough time to actually look at the problem to see if a proposed solution truly is what it claims to be.  Indeed, we tend to confuse the symptom of a problem to be the problem itself, and work to deal with the symptom while letting the root problem thrive and grow in power. It will not be long before the problem will re-emerge, surprising us not only with how strong it has become, but how terrible its new symptoms are. 

When we bring our discussion back to the empirical sciences, we can see what is really going on. Science often appears to offer us an easy way out to a given problem. But we don’t test it properly. Nor do we question what science offers us if it appears it will be effective. Utility is the only question people tend to ask. What will it do for me? Not, of course, the deeper, more in-depth questions which need to be asked before the question of utility comes up. The speed by which we achieve some sort of solution to a problem is all that is needed to justify the endeavor. What a dangerous way to look at things! And because moral laxity often allows for research to be done quicker, is it any surprise ethics are removed from technological discussions? Anyone who cares about such things must be anti-progressive and want people to suffer (when, in all likelihood, it is the scientist who rejects ethical standards who is the one who doesn’t care about human suffering).  Because of the speed by which our discoveries are now being made, we do not even have the time to examine them, inspect them, and discern their strengths and weaknesses, before they are released upon the unsuspecting public. And it is grave weaknesses, which should have prevented such release in the first place, which tend to create new, greater problems, and we find, sooner than later, it is too late, and we are suffering greater than ever before. For this reason alone, it is better for us to slow down, and properly research the problem, and all the ethical questions involved with it, and all the possible, foreseeable difficulties which might arise from a given solution, before engaging any technological advancement. 

What Ellul suggests about social problems and proposed solutions to them proves true here as well: “We find ourselves thus in the presence of a large number of solutions, but these do not respond to any problem posed – or more precisely, the problem is posed well enough in reality, in the practical life, but it is not formulated, it is not intellectually, analytically conceived.”[5] Ellul points out how one proposed solution, which might at first appear simple, are actually more complex than we first believed, because no social action is independent of other influences; ultimately, we could end up leveling of society because we did not consider the potential ramifications of a single, apparently minor, change we bring to it. Similarly, what happens with the sciences and our technological progress is the same. We might put out a new product which, because of the interdependent nature of the world, would end up destroying the world around it. We must not end up like Icarus, who, attaining great heights with his wings, felt a real sense of freedom, before falling back down and crashing to his own destruction.  Will we stop ascending the heights and deal with the problem around us, or will we keep on climbing up, up, and up, never looking back until it is too late?  

The words of Neo at the end of The Matrix should not be seen as addressing some possible future which we might end up living under. It should be seen as addressing the current situation which we find ourselves in. We might not be hooked up to computers, living in artificial reality, but we do not have to be: the world around is – it is already an artificial reality, created by our ingenuity. We have constructed it even as we have hid this fact from ourselves. And this artificial world has already gained control of our lives, and we live within it as if it were natural; the real has been devastated and bulldozed away, where, in its wake, we find we live in a kind of Disney Land, although, as Baudrillard points out, we try to hide this fact from ourselves. “Disneyland: a space of the regeneration of the imaginary as waste-treatment plants are elsewhere, and even here. Everywhere today one must recycle waste, and the dreams, the phantasms, the historical, fairylike, legendary imaginary of children and adults is a waste product, the first great toxic excrement of a hyperreal civilization.”[6] We must dismantle the boundaries of this imaginary land, this construct which hides from ourselves the true revolting nature of the modern world, before it is too late. The boundaries established for us by modernism and its empirical sciences must be overcome and deconstructed, as post-modernists proclaim, so as to open us up to start anew, with less grand designs, less Promethean desires. There is still time. That is the challenge of Neo to us. It’s not merely a challenge for others, but it is for us all, because we all, together, have created and control the unreal, hyperreal social structures which surround us today. It is time to begin again, to begin anew, to be, born again, as it were (without, of course, expecting utopia to result from such a change): 

The way we work, the salaries we earn, the houses we construct, the cars we drive, the money we spend, the luxuries we enjoy, the goods we consume, the resources we waste, even the channels we decide to watch or ignore on television – all of these, we now know, impact directly on our neighbors within our own society, in our neighborhood, and more broadly, in our world. Our way of living, we now know, either enhances or endangers the earth’s inhabitants as well as all future generations. Perhaps this is the unique responsibility and historical privilege that we share as human beings in the twenty-first century. Are we prepared to assume this responsibility and accept this challenge?[7]

Patriarch Bartholomew has it right when he calls for Christians to work for this change. We live in a world where it is still possible. But that future is up to us. Indifference must be dealt with, especially our indifference to the ethical questions involved with the modern world and all that has brought it about. Even if, in the past, people could remain indifferent, because the implications of these advances did not affect them, the time is soon be near when no one will be left unaffected by the harm we have caused the earth because of our Promethean designs; and by that time, it might be too late for us to fix it. That will be the time of Antichrist, and it will be the Antichrist which we have made, a messiah as artificial as the world of our own creation.

Footnotes 

[1] Paul Virilio, The Information Bomb. Trans. Chris Turner (New York: Verso, 2005), 1. Interestingly enough, in a footnote to this point, Virilio mentions the religious leader he thought best represented this trend: Pope John Paul II.  “Pope John Paul II was criticizing the militarization of science and its culture of death as early as the late 1980s.” ibid.
[2] Of course, there are others, such as animal rights activists, who should also be included here.
[3] One just needs to consider the reaction the general public has to either Greenpeace activists out at sea or pro-lifers at an abortion clinic to realize how activists’ actions, even if justified and needed at specific occasions, might not be the best action for every situation. It’s when they act imprudently that they are most remembered, causing an embarrassment to the cause itself. Wisdom looks ahead and tries to find a way to correct the root problem; sadly, irrational actions of activists often increase the tension and end up worsening the situation, preventing the dialogue needed to correct societal wrongs.
[4] It is, of course, important to note that Pope John Paul II saw the necessary connection between ecology and the pro-life movement. In a homily he gave in Brazil, he made many relevant points, which demonstrate the interconnected nature between the ecological and the pro-life cause. “The other great problem affecting society today is the environmental question, the problem of ecology. We all know the causes of this problem. On the occasion of the recent publication of the Encyclical Centesimus annus, the topic was treated to emphasize that ‘in his desire to have and to enjoy rather than to be and to grow, man consumes the resources of the earth and his own life in an excessive and disordered way.’” Moreover, he said, “When one enters into contact with environmental problems, whether in the Amazon basin or the lowlands of Mato Grosso, these observations are confirmed; unfortunately, they do not affect Brazil alone, but also other regions of the planet, even in the industrialized nations.” And finally, connecting this together, with what he saw in Brazil itself, and how it reflects the situation in the rest of the world, he said, “For Brazil, environmental protection is most of all the right to protection of life. If we take into consideration the enormous problems of the infrastructure of the large urban centres, we will have an idea of the challenges which will face the country in this closing century,” Pope John Paul II, Homily at Mass in Cuiabá, Oct. 16, 1991.
[5] Jacques Ellul, “Needed: A New Karl Marx!” pgs. 31 – 45 in Sources & Trajectories. Trans. Marva J. Dawn (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company. 1997), 37.
[6] Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation. Trans. Sheila Faria Glaser (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1994), 13.
[7] Patriarch Bartholomew, Encountering the Mystery: Understanding Orthodox Christianity Today (New York: Doubleday, 2008), 156.