The Moral Dimension of Technology

by Kevin Kelly

What technology brings to us individually is the possibility of finding out who we are, and more important, who we might be. During his or her lifetime, each person acquires a unique combination of latent abilities, handy skills, nascent insights, and potential experiences that no one else shares. Even twins—who share common DNA—don’t share the same life. When people maximize their set of talents, they shine because no one can do what they do. People fully inhabiting their unique mixture of skills are inimitable, and that is what we prize about them. Talent unleashed doesn’t mean that everyone will sing on Broadway or play in the Olympics or win a Nobel Prize. Those high-profile roles are merely three well-worn ways of being a star, and by deliberate design those particular opportunities are limited. Popular culture wrongly fixates on proven star roles as the destiny of anyone successful. In fact, those positions of prominence and stardom can be prisons, straitjackets defined by how someone else excelled.

Ideally, we would find a position of excellence tailored specifically for everyone born. We don’t normally think of opportunities this way, but these tools for achievement are called “technology.” The technology of vibrating strings opened up (created) the potential for a virtuoso violin player. The technology of oil paint and canvas unleashed the talents of painters through the centuries. The technology of film created cinematic talents. The soft technologies of writing, lawmaking, and mathematics all expanded our potential to create and do good. Thus in the course of our lives as we invent things and create new works that others may build on, we—as friends, family, clan, nation, and society— have a direct role in enabling each person to optimize their talents—not in the sense of being famous but in the sense of being unequaled in his or her unique contribution.

However, if we fail to enlarge the possibilities for other people, we diminish them, and that is unforgivable. Enlarging the scope of creativity for others, then, is an obligation. We enlarge others by enlarging the possibilities of the technium— the greater ecosystem of technology – by developing more technology and more convivial expressions of it.

[For more on the possibilities of technology, check out Kevin Kelly's new book, What Technology Wants.]

If the best cathedral builder who ever lived was born now, instead of 1,000 years ago, he would still find a few cathedrals being built to spotlight his glory. Sonnets are still being written and manuscripts still being illuminated. But can you imagine how poor our world would be if Bach had been born 1,000 years before the Flemish invented the technology of the harpsichord? Or if Mozart had preceded the technologies of piano and symphony? How vacant our collective imaginations would be if Vincent van Gogh had arrived 5,000 years before we invented cheap oil paint? What kind of modern world would we have if Edison, Greene, and Dickson had not developed cinematic technology before Hitchcock or Charlie Chaplin grew up?

How many geniuses at the level of Bach and Van Gogh died before the needed technologies were available for their talents to take root? How many people will die without ever having encountered the technological possibilities that they would have excelled in? I have three children, and though we shower them with opportunities, their ultimate potential may be thwarted because the ideal technology for their talents has yet to be invented. There is a genius alive today, some Shakespeare of our time, whose masterworks society will never own because she was born before the technology (holodeck, wormhole, telepathy, magic pen) of her greatnes was invented. Without these manufactured possibilities, she is diminished, and by extension all of us are diminished.

[Kevin Kelly will be speaking at Q 2011 gathering in Portland. Register now.]

For most of history, the unique mix of talents, skills, insights, and experiences of each person had no outlet. If your dad was a baker, you were a baker. As technology expands the space of possibilities, it expands the chance that someone can find an outlet for their personal traits. We thus have a moral obligation to increase the best of technology. When we enlarge the variety and reach of technology, we increase options not just for ourselves and not just for others living but for all those to come as the technium ratchets up complexity and beauty over generations.

This article is excerpted from What Technology Wants (Viking Adult, 2010). Used by permission.

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Do you see the redemptive edge of technology? In your opinion, when does technology become a negative thing in our lives?

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Editor's Note: The artwork featured above is a retro-futurist piece by Klaus Burgle.

Comments

Pat H

This is thought provoking. I've been reading so much recently about how we are suffocating under technology, but this reminds us that technology makes the impossible possible. This is right in line with Andy Crouch in Culture Making discussing cultivating what is good and broadening the horizons of the possible!

Roy

Well written piece - however, this attempts to put weight to 'non-reality'. What if the world was never created? What if water didn't exist? It's a fancy discussion, great for the imagination, but lends little yield in any actual fruit or action one can partake in.

"However, if we fail to enlarge the possibilities for other people, we diminish them, and that is unforgivable" then -->

"For most of history, the unique mix of talents, skills, insights, and experiences of each person had no outlet. "

Unforgivable? Do you mean that? Of course not everyone can have an outlet for something that has yet to exist. Is this article is about 'technology' or about the concept of time and death? Seems like the basics are left out in the foundation of this thought.

Rex

Interesting article. I have a few thoughts.

First of all, even if there was a possibility that our talents could take on a whole new uniqueness with a different technology, what's the use of talking about it? What I mean is that God has a plan. A perfect plan which works out all things to His glory the way He wishes them to. Thus, God creates and uses everything to the furthering of His kingdom. To say that someone should've had a different area of talent is usurping the sovereignty of God. A principle to come out of this is content.

I am more making a point than disagreeing with any of you.

I do see your point Kevin. That IF new technologies had been invented, that I may have been excellent at it and there's nothing wrong about thinking like this. But I do want to stress that we cannot get caught up in remorse if we could've been a more important person.

When it comes to the merely pondering over the idea, yes, it is amazing that Bach was born in the time period that he was. This is an obvious example of God's hand in history, along with everything else. To sum it up, we should be satisfied that in the future as well as in the past will God work everything out for good.

jweaks

This assumes that people are born with gifts (talents) for which there may be no means to use or express those gifts. I'm not sure I buy that. If all gifts are God given, then the question is... does God give gifts that cannot be fulfilled or expressed?

Amos Allen

God is not limited by the lack or "not yet-ness" of any technology. I hear the author saying we, who follow Jesus, have the opportunities to give opportunities to people.

It's not a shame Jesus did not have TV. He used what was to make huge differences in people's lives.

Thanks, Mr. Kelly; fascinating.

chris sieverts

as with all things, the more the variety, the more chances for destructive use as well as productive use.

Rex

jweaks, here is a helpful verse: Romans 12:6-8

"Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching; Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness." This talks of gifts. Gifts which, when you look at them do not depend on technology. My analysis would be that we all have gifts that can be used presently. If a new technology comes out. It will not require new gifts. Just a different way of combining and using the present ones. For example, Bach had a gift for music. What do we mean by this? We mean that he was extremely good at making it harmonious, etc... This gift is a combining of diligence, a good ear for harmony, the ability to make music, etc... which all could be used for a different output of music, but at the time (within the circumstances) Bach was able to use his gifts the way he did.

john

this article is disturbing.

What exactly does the author mean "the best of our technology"? How do we define "best"?

The author does not seem to mention anything of the cost of technology. Be it monetary, ecological, or moral. For instance, what if we create a technology that allows for the greatest music ever to be produced, but to do so we have to ruin the ecological infrastructure of large parts of the world? Are we obligated to create that technology so that we can all be enriched?

Couldn't we take the same analogy that author uses about how our world has been enriched by Hitchcock and Chaplin and go the opposite direction? What kind of life would the people of Hiroshima had if the nuclear bomb had never been invented?

This article seems to presuppose several things all which I'm not entirely convinced of:

1. The development of technology only allows for positive change/growth/evolution

2. The negatives/damages caused by technologies to people and/or places do not count in the equation of what technology brings to us

3. Abundance of technology necessarily brings about excellent use of that technology.

john

one more points. Sorry, I forgot to add this onto the last one. Possibly the most disturbing two sentences in this whole article are here:

"For most of history, the unique mix of talents, skills, insights, and experiences of each person had no outlet. If your dad was a baker, you were a baker."

Explain to me how being a baker does not involve involve talent, skill, insight, and experience? The first sentence quoted here is completely false. Everything every one does is an outlet for a unique mix of talents, skills, insights, and experiences!

jweaks

Rex, thank you. If I understand you correctly, we are in agreement. And the author's notion that "For most of history, the unique mix of talents, skills, insights, and experiences of each person had no outlet." is mistaken.

justinau

I'm with John on this one. Since we are sinful beings, we also use technology for evil. Each time God has blessed mankind with a new technology/gift to be used for good, we have also used it for evil.

-he gave Moses the 'technology' of the Law, Israel found new ways to rebel

- in the last century we have had medical breakthroughs used for abortion and euthanasia and even though the Internet has so many great uses such as connecting the isolated, evangelizing places that missionaries can't go physically etc, it is also used for porn, excessive gambling, gossip ...

Rex

justinau, I would place in the point that even though we as fallen creatures can't on our own do any good. God uses us to use technology for good. Consider the ability to publicize a Bible on the internet for everyone to use. This forum also, to discuss worldview. Cars for quick transportation so speakers can travel to more conferences. Phones and quick chats for absent discipling. There are so many GOOD things alongside the bad which technology can be used!

Brad

Some thoughts, in no particular order:

I have to agree with John on this one. This article fails to give a fair shake to both sides of the technology argument. The dangers of technological advancement are never even mentioned. The nuclear bomb was the first example that popped into my head. How about Hitler's brilliant (yet abhorrently evil) use of film for propagandizing?

If the issue is morality, then we have to include the human heart in our evaluation. I can agree that redeemed people need to help guide the creation and use of new technologies, but what about the lost, those with un-regenerate hearts? Since we cannot trust evil people to use technology well--We can barely trust ourselves. How much pornography is consumed by professing Christians?--what about the Christian responsibility to regulate and sometimes repress the advancement of technology?

"If you're dad was a baker, you were a baker." This problem has to do with social structures and the repression of individuality, not technology.

What if Bach had been....Mozart had been...Van Gogh...etc.? Um...they weren't. It seems like God gave the world the technology it needed and the people to use it simultaneously. Don't you think we can trust him to keep up the good work?

jill

Just because we are able to do something, doesn't mean we should. That's what I thought this would be about when I saw the title.

While I appreciate the many conveniences that technology continues to bring to us, our almost total dependance on it creeps me out.