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Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Blast From The Past...
by: Jeff Einstein
The following was written by yours truly back in early
1997 as an introduction to a proposal for a new ? as yet
unpublished ? book titled The Quality of Life Handbook.
For some reason, my unpublished work always seems more
relevant than the stuff people actually read...
Let me begin by stating what this book is not about:
It's not a mere diatribe against science and technology.
Other more learned authors have already cited the ill
effects of elevating technology to theology. Besides,
I am very much the product of a technology-driven
environment, and enjoy too many fruits of technology to
turn suddenly sanctimonious.
It's not a plea for a return to religion: In practical
terms, institutional religion cannot compete with
technology in a consumer society. Most responsible
religions preach moderation, and moderation is anathema
to a pagan institution like consumerism. And whereas
religion might be able to accommodate and incorporate
science and technology, science and technology will
never reciprocate.
It's not about managing the insane logistics of modern
life more efficiently because that?s the mantra of
technology, and therefore the primary problem, not the
solution.
And it's certainly not about finding the God within,
although it will require us to slam on the brakes on
occasion and?in the words of Gandhi?turn the spotlight
inward.
Simply stated, this book is about our societal and personal
relationships with runaway technology, how those relation-
ships?left unexamined and unattended?adversely affect the
quality of our lives, and what remedial steps we can take
to restore and improve the quality of life for ourselves
and our children. This book is a plea for sanity and
faith and moderation in all things, technology and science
and media not least.
I remember the grand promises of technology from my boyhood
in the 1950s and '60s, promises later buried or abandoned
altogether in the 1980s and '90s, and I wonder what the
hell happened. When and how, for instance, did we come to
reconcile technology's promise to feed a hungry world and
eradicate disease with the daily starvation of thousands
of children and the epidemic growth of degenerative
pathologies like cancer and heart disease? What happened
to the Great Society's war on poverty? Or our multi-
billion dollar high-tech war on cancer? And speaking of
wars, how do we explain the proliferation and brutal
savagery of local armed conflicts with fifty years of
nuclear weapons?the very technology designed to end all
wars? More recently, how do we reconcile the promise of
the paperless office with the wholesale destruction of
the very forests it promised to save in the first place?
And I recall that not too long ago the generic sales
pitch behind most consumer technology was the promise to
generate more leisure time. In fact, social scientists
and economists engaged in serious debate about the
implementation and effects of a 30-hour, four-day work
week, the inevitable byproduct of a benevolent technology.
Or so we thought. Of course, the end of cheap oil and the
introduction and subsequent ubiquity of the microchip
brought that discussion to an abrupt end, and now most of
us would be more than happy to settle for a mere five-day,
60-hour work week. The captains of industry?abetted by
Madison Avenue with its customary aplomb?didn't miss a
beat, and simply shifted gears en route: To compensate for
the leisure time that never materialized, they introduced
the concept of quality time. And when they realized that
few of us actually had the time for quality time, they
invented then promoted the notion of more productive time
instead, the ability to do more in less time, which?almost
needless to say?constitutes the exact opposite of leisure
time.
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Indeed, the closer I looked the more I noticed a consider-
able gap between the promises of technology and the
realities of technology, a gap that on closer inspection
seems to grow as technology accelerates, a gap that
warrants exploration and mediation for three primary
reasons:
Technology is all pervasive. No relationship in modern
society demands more from us?physically, mentally and
emotionally, spiritually, and socially?from the moment we
are born to the moment we die than our relationship with
technology. As the pace of modern life continues to
accelerate?as both the number and sheer complexity of
daily tasks grow?we find ourselves engaged in the mindless
and numbing devotion of ever more time and resources to
the minutiae and maintenance of ephemeral relationships
with the technologies in our lives. Eventually we discover?
usually via some traumatic or catastrophic event?that
relationships with our loved ones, our gods, and the
things that otherwise imbue our lives with real purpose
and direction, have suffered and atrophied from neglect.
Time, we come to realize, is our only real inventory; how
many of us will go to our deathbeds wishing we had spent
more of it at the office?
The growing gap between the promise and reality of
technology reflects an erosion of faith and moral
authority. Science and technology are jealous gods, and
do not tolerate any authority except their own. Yet the
quality of life suffers when our confidence embraces only
those things that can be measured, quantified and other-
wise explained by experts as component parts of scientific
models. Art and history and tradition and love and grace
and humility and soul and faith are lost, each offered up
in sacrifice on the altar of science and technology. All
that remains ultimately is a heap of broken promises and
a society of cynics?the real legacy of a future without
faith, a future driven by science and technology for the
sole benefit of science and technology.
Ironically, however, the gap between the promise and
reality of technology is where we will find the
opportunities to restore and improve the quality of life.
Several thousand years ago, the ancient Sufi priests said
we become our attention, an observation based initially
on faith and since confirmed by the science of modern
subatomic physics. Nothing material exists, they said.
And so also say the priests of modern times, the
physicists. There is no material existence, they agree,
only a tendency to exist?and only when we look for it,
only when we turn our attention to it. So it is safe to
assume that as we turn our attention to the problems
inherent in the gap, the opportunities therein will
emerge. In fact, the gap between promise and reality
bequeaths an entire universe of hidden opportunities.
We only have to look for them.
Our sojourn through the Quality of Life Handbook features
three primary sections; think of them as you would the
three basic steps inherent in any trip to the family
doctor: history, diagnosis, and treatment.
History: First we'll explore the gap between the promise
and reality of technology. We'll examine our cultural
fascination, susceptibility, and addiction to science,
technology, and the media, then identify and examine the
stealth technologies of modern society, and how these
hidden technologies adversely affect the quality of our
lives?under the simple assertion that we can?t deal with
something we can't see.
Diagnosis: Next we'll construct a working definition for
the quality of life, and apply it immediately on the
Centrifugal Map ®, an elegantly quick and easy way to
identify the problem areas in any relationship with any
person or thing. The Centrifugal Map, to my knowledge,
is the first and only graphical diagnostic tool ever
devised explicitly to illustrate how the relationships in
our lives contribute to the overall quality of our lives.
There are no new age terms to learn, no numbers to add,
subtract, multiply or divide, and it requires just a
minute or two to complete. Most important, it compels
us by design to ask the right questions and assess the
quality of life each and every time we use it. In short,
it works.
Treatment: Once we've identified the problems, we'll learn
how to turn our attention to them one by one?and discover
the opportunities inside each. We'll learn how to mitigate
our addiction to technology by learning the right questions
to ask, how to identify and apply those things that
contribute to the quality of life, and how to re-introduce
ritual in our day-to-day lives as antidote to technology
and media overdose.
The tenets represented in the Quality of Life Handbook
offer, I believe, our best hope as individuals and society
to narrow the gap between the promise and reality of
technology, and improve the quality of life. The journey
is sometimes painful and difficult, sometimes joyous and
heroic, and there are no shortcuts. Regardless, it is a
journey we cannot defer any longer. And like all journeys,
this one begins with the first step...
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