On Being a Bit Anti-Technology

From a December 2004 MoonLetter

A few months ago, my father-in-law (or FIL, as the Brits over here like to call then) told me rather sheepishly that he just can't 'get into the Internet'. He doesn't understand how people could spend hours surfing and all that.

My initial reaction to this was defensive, since I'm a bit of a computer-addict myself. And then I thought about what FIL does with his free time: several nights a week are spent in choir practice, band practice, or playing gigs.

Mmmm.

I thought back to Andy Fisher's words in Radical Ecopsychology:

I suggest that most people in a technological society suffer from a form of "violent lack" or experiential starvation...

He suggests using 'counterpractice' to

engage the world in a manner that lies outside the pattern of technology, thereby winning both a freer relation to technology and a more satisfying or contactful relation to reality. ... [C]ountering technology does not mean somehow eliminating it, but rather contesting its current pattern and reclaiming it as an artful serving of all life.

And one type of counterpractice he introduces is called 'Focal Practice'.

It is ... a freely chosen commitment to a form of regular practice that is of felt benefit, even if it may involve some difficulty. ... Focal practices, therefore, would include joining a theatre group, meeting weekly with friends to play music, or taking up a concrete spiritual practice. These would counter the pattern of technology to the extent that they call for acquisition of skill, fidelity to discipline, the broadening of sensibility, the making of good, bodily felt contact with others, and the preservation and development of life-giving tradition.

Should FIL being feeling sheepish?? Um, no. I'm the one humbled by his sheepishness and the fact that I don't have much bodily felt contact to brag about. ... Although I am trying! (she writes onto a screen for computers to receive in cyberspace...)

ahem.

Comments

[Craig Chalquist PhD]

I'm an avid computer user myself, as my Web page reflects, but I wonder at times with a sense of horror whether the Internet, computers, and Artificial Intelligence are, at bottom, Gaia's way of dreaming up our replacements. ("Matter" comes from "mater," and "techno" from "shape.") I wonder if anyone has done a study on the unconscious (premonitory) roots of people's dread of technology.

[heather witham]

Hmm.. I'd never thought of it that way. It's certainly an interesting thought. I think I'd lean more toward Gaia not having intentions in that way. And our dread having more to do with understanding at how unhealthy it is to be so separate from Nature... Hmm..