In my last post I stirred up a good debate on the issue of technology.  Although my primary intent was to recommend the use of wild places as a place of retreat from the pressures and distractions of modern life so heavily influenced by rapid technological change, I believe some felt that by my reference to Jacques Ellul’s writing I was condemning modern technology and was recommending a return to some idyllic, but fictitious, “good ole days.”

So let me reiterate what I mentioned in comments I posted last fall:

No doubt the value of wilderness is almost more in what is not found there than in what is.  Consider what we typically do not find in a true uninhabited wilderness (uninhabited by humans, that is!):

. . . personal multipliers of power (vehicles, electricity, et. al.)
. . . markets and marketers
. . . external temptations
. . . false values
. . . lying words
. . . too many voices to attend to
. . . too many people to relate to
. . . racial, ethnic, and gender tensions
. . . personal deception and pretense (masks)
. . . meaningless entertainment
. . . continuous distraction
. . . an overload of news (information)
. . . an overload of human technology
. . . an overload of noise
. . . the need to talk incessantly
. . . daily routines and responsibilities clamoring for attention
. . . constant time pressure
. . . the sense that I am in control

Is there any person who cannot benefit from being relieved of these stresses from time to time?

Many of those stresses relate to modern technology; so let me say a few more words about the thoughts of Elull, a French Christian and professor of sociology at the University of Bordeaux who died in 1994.  His magnum opus was the sociology tome The Technological Society (1964), which was not a Christian publication (though containing many Christian and theological implications).  His book The Technological Bluff was published in 1990 by Christian publisher Eerdmans.  His major point in that book was a sort of twist on Emerson who said that “Things are in the saddle and ride mankind,” and held that, “Technology is in the saddle and rides mankind.”

His belief was that those of us living in the technology society, for all its many benefits, are so enamored of technology and technology is so pervasive in its influence that we have simply lost control over it—and lost even the will to control it.  Without critical, moral, wise, and godly oversight and direction, technology has a life of its own that has in many ways become a powerful extension of human evil.

So we have atomic energy and the atomic bomb; we have microwave ovens to cook and expensive electronic toys and TV to divert our thoughts and steal our time from the things of first importance; we have chain saws to harvest timber and do landscaping; and we have massive machines that literally mow down old growth forests and threaten entire ecosystems; we have TVs and computers for instant access to important information and access to more information than one can possibly grasp, pornography one click away from our online Bibles, and endless diversion.

TVA coal ash spill 2008

And all the while, God’s good earth suffers and we suffer for our lack of valuing it, understanding it, being good stewards of it, and neglecting being outdoors in it enough to be reminded of the power and glory of our Creator and be refreshed and renewed by the experience.

So here I am in my high-tech office employed as a blog author and writing this post, which shortly you will be reading via the Internet on your high-tech device in your high-tech home.  With a hunger within me for the simple, agrarian ways (thinking Wendell Berry and the Amish), I do this with a nagging sense of both guilt and angst—wishing often that I was not here but out there.  A technology captive with self-applied shackles.  Sigh.

See you outdoors!

Dean