Some basic premises often fash­ioned by lead­ers and sup­ported by the led exer­cise the col­lec­tive con­science of the led in so far as they stim­u­late a willed devel­op­ment. The devel­op­ment is usu­ally supe­rior but not nec­es­sar­ily civ­i­lized. The premises in ques­tion are of this form: Our level of tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment is sec­ond to none. Upon reach­ing this level, we also have to pre­pare our soci­ety for peace, and to guar­an­tee the peace, tech­nol­ogy must be revised to fos­ter the pol­icy of war. Tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment that is pushed in this direc­tion sets a dan­ger­ous prece­dent for other soci­eties that fear a threat to their respec­tive sov­er­eign­ties. They are pushed to also fos­ter a war tech­nol­ogy.

In the domain of civ­i­liza­tion, this mode of devel­op­ment is not praise­wor­thy, nor is it morally jus­ti­fi­able. Since it is not morally jus­ti­fi­able, it is socially irre­spon­si­ble. An inspec­tion of the premises will reveal that it is the last one that poses a prob­lem. The last premise is the con­clu­sion of two pre­ced­ing premises but is not in any way log­i­cally deduced. What it shows is a pas­sion­ately deduced con­clu­sion, and being so, it fails to be reck­oned as a con­clu­sion from a ratio­nally pre­pared mind, at least at the time at which it was deduced.

A soci­ety that advances accord­ing to the above pre­sup­po­si­tions and espe­cially accord­ing to the illog­i­cal con­clu­sion — has trans­mit­ted the psy­che of non-negotiable supe­ri­or­ity to its peo­ple. All along, the power of pas­sion dic­tates the pace of human con­duct. Whether in con­struc­tive engage­ments or willed part­ner­ships, the prin­ci­ple of equal­ity fails to work pre­cisely because of the supe­ri­or­ity syn­drome that grips the leader and the led. And a dif­fer­ent soci­ety that refuses to share in the col­lec­tive sen­si­bil­i­ties or pas­sion of such soci­ety has, by the expected logic, become a poten­tial or actual enemy and faces con­fronta­tion on all pos­si­ble fronts.

Most of what we learn about the present world, of course, via the media, is dom­i­nated by state-of-the-art tech­nol­ogy. Soci­eties that have the most of such tech­nol­ogy are also, time and again, claimed to be the most advanced. It is not only their advance­ment that lifts them to the pin­na­cle of power, supe­ri­or­ity, and fame. They can also use tech­nol­ogy to sim­plify and move for­ward an under­stand­ing of life and nature in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion, a direc­tion that tends to elim­i­nate, as much as pos­si­ble, a prior con­nec­tion between life and nature that was, in many respects, mys­ti­cal and unsafe. This last point does not nec­es­sar­ily mean that tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment is a mark of a supe­rior civilization.

What we need to know is that civ­i­liza­tion and tech­nol­ogy are not con­ju­gal terms. Civ­i­lized peo­ple may have an advanced tech­nol­ogy or they may not have it. Civ­i­liza­tion is not just a mat­ter of sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy or tech­ni­cal infra­struc­ture, or, again, the mar­vel of build­ings; it also has to do with the moral and men­tal reflexes of peo­ple as well as their level of social con­nect­ed­ness within their own soci­ety and beyond. It is from the gen­eral behav­iour makeup of peo­ple that all forms of phys­i­cal struc­tures could be cre­ated, so too the ques­tion of sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy. Thus, the kind of bridges, roads, build­ings, heavy machin­ery, among oth­ers, that we can see in a soci­ety could tell, in a gen­eral way, the behav­ioural pat­tern of the peo­ple. Behav­ioural pat­tern could also tell a lot about the extent to which the nat­ural envi­ron­ment has been uti­lized for infra­struc­tural activ­i­ties, sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy. Above all, behav­ioural pat­tern could tell a lot about the per­cep­tions and under­stand­ing of the peo­ple about other people.

I do believe and, I think, most peo­ple do believe that upon accel­er­at­ing the rate of infra­struc­tural activ­i­ties and tech­nol­ogy, the envi­ron­ment has to recede in its nat­u­ral­ness. Once advanc­ing tech­nol­ogy (and its atten­dant struc­tures or ideas) com­petes with the green envi­ron­ment for space, this envi­ron­ment that houses trees, grass, flow­ers, all kinds of ani­mals and fish has to shrink in size. Yet the growth of pop­u­la­tion, the relent­less human crav­ing for qual­ity life, the need to con­trol life with­out depend­ing on the unpre­dictable con­di­tion of the nat­ural envi­ron­ment prompt the use of tech­nol­ogy. Tech­nol­ogy need not pose unwar­ranted dan­ger to the nat­ural envi­ron­ment. It is the mis­use of tech­nol­ogy that is in ques­tion. While a soci­ety may justly uti­lize tech­nol­ogy to improve qual­ity of life, its peo­ple also have to ask: how much tech­nol­ogy do we need to safe­guard the nat­ural envi­ron­ment? Sup­pose soci­ety Y blends the mod­er­ate use of tech­nol­ogy with the nat­ural envi­ron­ment in order to off­set the reck­less destruc­tion of the lat­ter, then this kind of posi­tion­ing prompts the point that soci­ety Y is a lover of the prin­ci­ple of bal­ance. From this prin­ci­ple, one can boldly con­clude that soci­ety Y favours sta­bil­ity more than chaos, and has, there­fore, the sense of moral and social respon­si­bil­ity. Any state-of-the-art tech­nol­ogy points to the sophis­ti­ca­tion of the human mind, and it indi­cates that the nat­ural envi­ron­ment has been cav­a­lierly tamed.

If humans do not want to live at the mercy of the nat­ural envi­ron­ment which, of course, is an uncer­tain way of life but accord­ing to their own pre­dicted pace, then the use of tech­nol­ogy is a mat­ter of course. It would seem that the prin­ci­ple of bal­ance that soci­ety Y has cho­sen could only be for a short while or that this is more of a make-believe posi­tion than a real one. For when the power of the human mind grat­i­fies itself fol­low­ing a momen­tous achieve­ment in tech­nol­ogy, retreat, or, at best, a slow-down is quite unusual. It is as if the human mind is telling itself: tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment has to accel­er­ate with­out any obstruc­tion. A retreat or a grad­ual process is an insult to the inquir­ing mind. This kind of thought process only points out the enigma of the mind, its dark side, not its finest area. And in seek­ing to inter­ro­gate the present mode of a cer­tain tech­nol­ogy accord­ing to the instruc­tions of the mind, the role of ethics is indispensable.

Is it morally right to use this kind of tech­nol­ogy for this kind of prod­uct? And is it morally right to use this kind of prod­uct? Both ques­tions hint that the prod­uct or prod­ucts in ques­tion are either harm­ful or not, envi­ron­men­tally friendly or not, or that they do not only cause harm directly to humans but directly to the envi­ron­ment too. And if, as I have stated, the pur­pose of tech­nol­ogy is to improve the qual­ity of life, then to use tech­nol­ogy to pro­duce prod­ucts that harm both humans and the nat­ural envi­ron­ment con­tra­dicts the pur­pose of tech­nol­ogy, and it also fal­si­fies an asser­tion that humans are ratio­nal. Fur­ther­more, it sug­gests that the sophis­ti­cated level that the human mind has reached is unable to grasp the essence or ratio­nale of qual­ity life. In this regard, a peace­ful coex­is­tence with the nat­ural envi­ron­ment would have been deserted for the sake of an unre­strained, inquir­ing human mind. The human mind would, as it were, become cor­rupted with beliefs or ideas that are unten­able in any num­ber of ways.

The advo­cacy that is done by envi­ron­men­tal­ists relate to the ques­tion of envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion and its neg­a­tive con­se­quences on humans. They insist that there is no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for pro­duc­ing high-tech prod­ucts that harm both humans and the nat­ural envi­ron­ment. This con­tention sounds per­sua­sive. High tech­nol­ogy may demon­strate the height of human accom­plish­ment, but it may not point to moral and social respon­si­bil­ity. And to this point, the ques­tion may be asked: In what ways can humans close the chasm between unre­strained high tech­nol­ogy and envi­ron­men­tal degradation?

Too often, most mod­ern humans tend to think that a sophis­ti­cated lifestyle is prefer­able to a sim­ple one. The for­mer is sup­ported by the weight of high tech­nol­ogy, the lat­ter is mostly not. The for­mer eases the bur­den of depend­ing too much on the dic­tates of the nat­ural envi­ron­ment, the lat­ter does not. The lat­ter tends to seek a sym­bi­otic rela­tion­ship with the nat­ural envi­ron­ment, the for­mer does not. Whether human com­fort should come largely from an advanced tech­nol­ogy or the nat­ural envi­ron­ment is not a mat­ter that could be eas­ily answered. If the nat­ural envi­ron­ment is shrink­ing due to pop­u­la­tion growth and other unavoid­able causes, then advanced tech­nol­ogy is required to alle­vi­ate the pres­sures to human com­fort that arise. It is the irre­spon­si­ble pro­lif­er­a­tion of, say, war tech­nol­ogy, high-tech prod­ucts, among oth­ers, that are in need of crit­i­cism and have to stop.

About The Author

Mr. Ainsah-Mensah has worked in var­i­ous capac­i­ties mostly in Canada and now in China. He is an edu­ca­tion and race rela­tions con­sul­tant, projects coor­di­na­tor, writer, and post-secondary instruc­tor in busi­ness courses, life skills, and crit­i­cal think­ing. He is cur­rently the prin­ci­pal of Handan-Lilac Edu­ca­tion Group in China.

kamch22@yahoo.ca

Author: Stephen K. Ainsah-Mensah
Arti­cle Source: EzineArticles.com
Pro­vided by: Dig­i­tal pipeline

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