Charlie Chaplin: Modern Times (1936)
According to Blanchot, Nietzsche is quick to grasp that all the modern world’s seriousness is confined to science and the "prodigious power of technology". Lawrence refers to this (poetically) as the triumph of the machine.
Whilst Nietzsche doesn't entirely deplore this fact, happy, for example, to support the experimental practices of science, he is by no means able to affirm the above development without reservation; not least of all because he identifies modern science as the descendant and heir of Christian moral culture. In other words, it's a machine-embodied unfolding of the ascetic ideal; an expression of mankind's pathological will to truth.
Thus, for Nietzsche, science and technology is fundamentally nihilistic in character, full of thinly veiled metaphysical prejudices and productive of reactive knowledge-forms which may yet prove fatal not only to the Christian moral culture from out of which it has grown, but to the possibility of culture per se as it puts on ice all the illusions which are necessary for the sustaining of culture and, indeed, life itself.
In addition to this fundamental antipathy between vital illusion and the pure knowledge drive, Nietzsche claims that science is incapable of serving as the foundation of culture because, unlike art, it knows nothing of “taste, love, pleasure, displeasure, exaltation, or exhaustion” and so cannot evaluate, cannot command, and cannot create. At best, when coupled to the huge resources of capitalism, science is capable of building a tremendous industrial-technological civilization, such as our own, but, for Nietzsche, this is not a genuine cultural formation because, whilst it is certainly capable of organizing the chaos of existence and constructing a monolithic system or network, it lacks style.
Style, insists Nietzsche, always involves the constraint of a single taste. But it is not merely the imposition of universal laws or categorical imperatives; nor does it seek to make all things and all forces familiar, similar, and predictable. The ideal abstractions of science may very effectively allow for the manipulation of the world and the subordination of life to a tyrannical knowledge form - logic - but this is not the same as mastery and the artist of culture is more than a mere systematizer.
Failing to make the distinction, the technocratic man of reason confuses bullying with a display of strength and mistakes force for power. This is perfectly illustrated in Lawrence's novel Women in Love by the figure of Gerald Crich; a character driven to impose his will and authority over himself and his workers, just as he does over his red Arab mare. Gerald’s world, the world of industrial civilization, has been described earlier by Lawrence in The Rainbow:
“The streets were like visions of pure ugliness ... that began nowhere and ended nowhere. Everything was amorphous, yet everything repeated itself endlessly ...
The place had the strange desolation of a ruin. ... The rigidity of the blank streets, the homogeneous amorphous sterility of the whole suggested death rather than life. ...
The place was a moment of chaos perpetuated, persisting, chaos fixed and rigid.”
If such a mechanical world essentially lacks style, so too does it entirely lack meaning. At best, it retains a strictly functional residue of the latter that allows it to continue to operate. How to give value back to such a world - and a little loveliness - is a concern shared by Nietzsche and Lawrence. They both fear, however, that so long as the nihilistic-scientific perspective retains its authority, there can be no revaluation. For such a perspective has not only made the barbarism of the modern world unavoidable, but it ensures the destruction of all other perspectives and modes of being.
And yet, perhaps there is hope to be found where we might have least expected to encounter it. This is one of the great lessons of encouragement given to us by Heidegger in his essay entitled ‘The Question Concerning Technology’. At the heart of this work are the following lines from Hölderlin: Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst / Das Rettende auch.
Commenting on these lines, George Steiner writes:
“To realize that false technicity has edged the human race to the brink of ecological devastation and political suicide, is to realize also that salvation is possible ... It is in the very extremity of the modern crisis, in the very time of nihilistic mechanism, that hope lies ready.”
It is important that we avoid misunderstanding here; hope does not lie in the fruits of science and technology themselves and it is not, therefore, a question of accelerating the production and proliferation of ever-more sophisticated machines in the erroneous assumption that only a micro-chip can save us. If, on the one hand, technophobes who rebel naively against technology and curse it as the work of the devil should rightly be challenged, then, on the other hand, technophiles and neo-futurists who argue for an ever-greater technological manipulation of life deserve also to be met with critical resistance.
Heidegger would surely have agreed with Lawrence that “the more we intervene machinery between us and the naked forces, the more we numb and atrophy our own senses”. Thus, if we are to find our way into a new revealing, then we will have to find a way to creatively manifest these forces. And if we are to deepen our questioning of nihilism and technology, then we will need to resist the temptation of easy solutions and the blackmail of being either for or against science.
It is only via such a questioning - one that manages to touch on the essence of technology - that we can find hope. For it is only by daring to think the latter, which is to say, move closer to the very danger that threatens us, that “the ways into the saving power begin to shine” more brightly.
Bibliography
Maurice Blanchot, 'The Limits of Experience: Nihilism', essay in The New Nietzsche, ed. David B. Allison, (The MIT Press, 1992).
Martin Heidegger, 'The Question Concerning Technology', essay in Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell (Routledge, 1994).
D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow, ed. Mark Kinkead-Weekes, (Cambridge University Press, 1989).
D. H. Lawrence, 'Dana's Two Years before the Mast', essay in Studies in Classic American Literature, ed. Ezra Greenspan, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 2003).
Nietzsche, 'The Struggle between Science and Wisdom', essay in Philosophy and Truth, ed. and trans. Daniel Breazeale, (Humanities Press International, 1993).
George Steiner, Heidegger, (Fontana Press, 1989).
Note: Part two of this post can be read by clicking here.
Whilst Nietzsche doesn't entirely deplore this fact, happy, for example, to support the experimental practices of science, he is by no means able to affirm the above development without reservation; not least of all because he identifies modern science as the descendant and heir of Christian moral culture. In other words, it's a machine-embodied unfolding of the ascetic ideal; an expression of mankind's pathological will to truth.
Thus, for Nietzsche, science and technology is fundamentally nihilistic in character, full of thinly veiled metaphysical prejudices and productive of reactive knowledge-forms which may yet prove fatal not only to the Christian moral culture from out of which it has grown, but to the possibility of culture per se as it puts on ice all the illusions which are necessary for the sustaining of culture and, indeed, life itself.
In addition to this fundamental antipathy between vital illusion and the pure knowledge drive, Nietzsche claims that science is incapable of serving as the foundation of culture because, unlike art, it knows nothing of “taste, love, pleasure, displeasure, exaltation, or exhaustion” and so cannot evaluate, cannot command, and cannot create. At best, when coupled to the huge resources of capitalism, science is capable of building a tremendous industrial-technological civilization, such as our own, but, for Nietzsche, this is not a genuine cultural formation because, whilst it is certainly capable of organizing the chaos of existence and constructing a monolithic system or network, it lacks style.
Style, insists Nietzsche, always involves the constraint of a single taste. But it is not merely the imposition of universal laws or categorical imperatives; nor does it seek to make all things and all forces familiar, similar, and predictable. The ideal abstractions of science may very effectively allow for the manipulation of the world and the subordination of life to a tyrannical knowledge form - logic - but this is not the same as mastery and the artist of culture is more than a mere systematizer.
Failing to make the distinction, the technocratic man of reason confuses bullying with a display of strength and mistakes force for power. This is perfectly illustrated in Lawrence's novel Women in Love by the figure of Gerald Crich; a character driven to impose his will and authority over himself and his workers, just as he does over his red Arab mare. Gerald’s world, the world of industrial civilization, has been described earlier by Lawrence in The Rainbow:
“The streets were like visions of pure ugliness ... that began nowhere and ended nowhere. Everything was amorphous, yet everything repeated itself endlessly ...
The place had the strange desolation of a ruin. ... The rigidity of the blank streets, the homogeneous amorphous sterility of the whole suggested death rather than life. ...
The place was a moment of chaos perpetuated, persisting, chaos fixed and rigid.”
If such a mechanical world essentially lacks style, so too does it entirely lack meaning. At best, it retains a strictly functional residue of the latter that allows it to continue to operate. How to give value back to such a world - and a little loveliness - is a concern shared by Nietzsche and Lawrence. They both fear, however, that so long as the nihilistic-scientific perspective retains its authority, there can be no revaluation. For such a perspective has not only made the barbarism of the modern world unavoidable, but it ensures the destruction of all other perspectives and modes of being.
And yet, perhaps there is hope to be found where we might have least expected to encounter it. This is one of the great lessons of encouragement given to us by Heidegger in his essay entitled ‘The Question Concerning Technology’. At the heart of this work are the following lines from Hölderlin: Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst / Das Rettende auch.
Commenting on these lines, George Steiner writes:
“To realize that false technicity has edged the human race to the brink of ecological devastation and political suicide, is to realize also that salvation is possible ... It is in the very extremity of the modern crisis, in the very time of nihilistic mechanism, that hope lies ready.”
It is important that we avoid misunderstanding here; hope does not lie in the fruits of science and technology themselves and it is not, therefore, a question of accelerating the production and proliferation of ever-more sophisticated machines in the erroneous assumption that only a micro-chip can save us. If, on the one hand, technophobes who rebel naively against technology and curse it as the work of the devil should rightly be challenged, then, on the other hand, technophiles and neo-futurists who argue for an ever-greater technological manipulation of life deserve also to be met with critical resistance.
Heidegger would surely have agreed with Lawrence that “the more we intervene machinery between us and the naked forces, the more we numb and atrophy our own senses”. Thus, if we are to find our way into a new revealing, then we will have to find a way to creatively manifest these forces. And if we are to deepen our questioning of nihilism and technology, then we will need to resist the temptation of easy solutions and the blackmail of being either for or against science.
It is only via such a questioning - one that manages to touch on the essence of technology - that we can find hope. For it is only by daring to think the latter, which is to say, move closer to the very danger that threatens us, that “the ways into the saving power begin to shine” more brightly.
Bibliography
Maurice Blanchot, 'The Limits of Experience: Nihilism', essay in The New Nietzsche, ed. David B. Allison, (The MIT Press, 1992).
Martin Heidegger, 'The Question Concerning Technology', essay in Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell (Routledge, 1994).
D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow, ed. Mark Kinkead-Weekes, (Cambridge University Press, 1989).
D. H. Lawrence, 'Dana's Two Years before the Mast', essay in Studies in Classic American Literature, ed. Ezra Greenspan, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 2003).
Nietzsche, 'The Struggle between Science and Wisdom', essay in Philosophy and Truth, ed. and trans. Daniel Breazeale, (Humanities Press International, 1993).
George Steiner, Heidegger, (Fontana Press, 1989).
Note: Part two of this post can be read by clicking here.
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