On Tech and Dignity: The Posthuman Technology That Threatens Us All (Part I)

From The Public Discourse.com (Jan. 25, 2022):

Humanity and technology are on a collision course.

Technology’s exponential advancement poses an existential threat to humanity itself and, therefore, to human dignity. When we discuss human dignity, we tend to focus nearly exclusively on the dignity half of the concept. But we can no longer afford to ignore the human half. Without humans, there’s no human dignity, and to continue to sit on our hands in the face of the technological revolution swirling around us is to acquiesce in the “abolition of man”—to borrow the title of C. S. Lewis’s 1943 book—which is right around the corner.

Runaway technology poses a threat to human beings and their dignity by a certain mindset that it creates in us—what I’ve elsewhere called “the technological gaze.” The technological gaze legitimizes the development and use of anti-human technology that accelerates according to its own inner logic and momentum. The distinguishing factor is not necessarily the technology itself, but rather the intention behind its creation. Technology that strikes at our humanity, our creatureliness before God, rather than aim at repairing and strengthening it, has its roots in the technological gaze.

The technological gaze is an expression of our alienation from nature and is, at its limit, contrary to humanity itself. It spurs humanity to overcome its various material deficiencies and limitations through ruthless, rational control of nature, and it trains us to view nature with fear because it’s often hostile to our (physical) well-being. The threat posed by modern technology is directed by an elite with transhuman aspirations. But at present it threatens non-elites more obviously and immediately.

Machiavelli and Technology’s Threat

To understand the technological gaze, we’ll need to engage in some intellectual history. To comprehend the present moment and where we’re going, we’ll consider Niccolò Machiavelli—whom Harvey Mansfield of Harvard dubs the “founder of modernity”—and his most famous work, The Prince.

The Prince is a “how-to” guide for would-be rulers. But it’s not just about the nuts and bolts of ruling; it’s also a deeply philosophical work. According to The Prince, the world’s source of order emerges from those who confront and overcome life’s various challenges—especially from those who subdue the greatest challenge of all: chance. For Machiavelli, necessity is the driving force behind people’s actions: seeing the verità effettuale, the “effectual truth” of things. The effectual truth is, in plain English, the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be. To focus on effectual truth above all else means rejecting both Platonic idealism (Machiavellianism is an attempt to drag us back down into Plato’s Cave, which is a lowering of our moral gaze) and orthodox Christian anthropology, ethics, and metaphysics.

In seeing things as they are, we’re free to act in ways that align with our self-interest. In this way, objective morality is cast aside and emptied of its force, and the “standard” of right and wrong becomes synonymous with the most dominant human will. In this way, Machiavellianism is the fulfillment of two famous ancient Greek aphorisms: “Man is the measure of all things” (Protagoras—and former Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy) and “Justice is the interest of the stronger” (Thrasymachus—and antebellum Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas).

In this way, Machiavelli founded “new modes and orders.” That is, he effected a paradigm shift, which Michael Hanby defines as “the passing away of one world and the coming-to-be of another.” What has been brought forth is an alternative understanding of reality that has comprehensively supplanted what came before it, rendering the features and logic of the old paradigm—that old world—anachronistic.  As a rough analogy, consider payphones in a world dominated by iPhones. What’s the point?

There is no point because that world is gone. That is what Machiavellianism has accomplished, by severing means from ends. In familiar terms, the ends come to justify the means, but, critically, the ends themselves are no longer connected to justice: a permanent and objective standard of right and wrong, good and bad, independent of human desire and power—natural law and natural right, reason and revelation, “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”

According to the technological gaze, people come to conceptualize “nature”—including human beings—as mere raw material. Nature comes to be viewed as inert matter devoid of any inner purpose and structure, to be manipulated according to the whims of the powerful, in particular technocrats—those with scientific know-how—and especially when those technocrats are politically well connected.

While elites are the architects of modern technology, non-elites face the brunt of our technological paradigm’s corrosive effects in the immediate term. First I will investigate the ways modern technology impacts non-elites, then I will examine the specific ways elites harness technology for their own posthuman ends, which threaten us all. Non-elites face threats from modern technology in two ways: liquidation and degradation. [read more]

Part II of the essay: On Tech and Dignity: How We Can Stay Human (Part II)