the modernist's superstition
Technique is to the modernist what superstition was to the medievalist.
It’s part of human nature to seek a silver bullet. We yearn for the quick fix. Call it that or the path of least resistance or lowering startup costs or reducing friction or productivity boosts- it’s all the same and it’s all the basis for technology’s fundamental precept. That of technique. Technique is what we’ve reached for since the time of Ford and Taylor. It’s what we seek to perfect in order to gain a semblance of control over life. It’s what we expect to give us a chance agains natural forces in our world.
The technical pervades all parts of life from work to leisure to relationship. Technique can be defined by its process dominated orientation. Our jobs are made up of functions like communications and task-completion, the setting of metrics and the impersonal treating of peers as a resource. Devices are the conduit through which we experience intimate connection and entertainment alike. We digest information and truth through technology that functions on principles of the technical. We throw ourselves into our systems with unconsciously machine-like motions praying they provide the results we designed them to get.
This behavior is not a far cry from a different kind of technique used centuries ago…
Superstition; n. 13th century
a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation…
Unsubstantiated religious beliefs were a regular part of life for the pre-modern human. Unexplainable forces warred across countries that were undefinably large. In a world where there be dragons, uncertainty was managed by ritualistic sacrifice and devotion. Practices were predicated upon the authenticity of the devotee, and deistic failings could be written off as a lack of faith to the process. The danger of this system are clear: when words and wards begin to fail, our inclination to show devotion tends toward sacrifice of the things we feel to be blocking our path to faith.
How far are we from a worldview whose foundation is the commitment of the user to the execution of esoteric principles? Do the techno-optimists on each coast represent the cultural spirit of our time? What if our loyalty to technological behaviors has enslaved us to a way of being that goes against the grain of human nature?
Some transcend this system. They choose to adopt paradigms instead of techniques. The tectonic shifts of culture have no effect upon those with solidified value systems, not technical systems. The reason for this is most simply stated by the French philosopher, Jacques Ellul. “No technique is possible when men are free.” The freedom found through limiting our consumption, desires, and behaviors disallows any practice that acts out of ignorance or trust in a convenient and omnipotent tool.
Contrary to our individualistic, antinomian culture’s ideal, we find freedom through restraint. Confucius said, “if a man have not order within him, he cannot spread order about him.“ The wisdom of the apostle Paul admonished, “you say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is good for you. And even though “I am allowed to do anything,” I must not become a slave to anything.” This echoes the great orator Cicero who advises us to “let your desires be ruled by reason.”
These dictums display the posture of those who became free through the abolition of superstition and technique. They relied upon virtue and trust in a higher power they came to know deeply, whether that power was from within or without. Technique itself was unable to find a foothold in their lives.
