The newest issue of The New Atlantis (Summer 2005; available on-line here) provides further evidence that it is the most instructive and insightful publication examining the many facets of the relationship between technology and culture. Christine Rosen (a guest on MARS HILL AUDIO Journal volume 70) continues her series of reflections on how some of the most private and personal technologies (iPods, TiVo, cosmetic surgery) shape our consciousness and our sense of personal identity and of the shape and texture of relationships. In “Video Games: Playgrounds of the Self,” Rosen shows why explicit sex and graphic violence are only the more superficial problems facing heavy game players.
Eric Cohen, the editor of The New Atlantis and Director of the Project on Bioethics and American Democracy at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, also focuses on the inner effects of living in a technological society. In “The Real Meaning of Genetics,” Cohen argues that the real challenge posed by radical programs of genetic engineering are not in the potentially monstrous products created by new techniques, but in new attitudes toward life, death, children, and love. In his concluding paragraphs, he reminds us that “too often, we easily assume that the progress of science is identical to the progress of man. The truth, as always, is much more complicated. Many men and women of the past were superior in virtue to us now, and many scientific discoveries of the present and future will prove a mixed blessing, and sometimes even a curse.”
Two theologians, David Bentley Hart (featured on volume 67 of the Journal) and Robert W. Jenson (a guest back on volume 20) contribute essays assessing the importance of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body for bioethics and for cultural and social wisdom more generally. Hart, an Eastern Orthodox theologian, contrasts the elevated view of the human in John Paul II’s work and in Christian thought more generally with the view that dominates in various “transhumanist” and eugenist circles. This latter view appears at first glance to present human beings in a more Promethean, grander guise, since there is a lot of talk about acquiring more and more power over nature and human nature and “becoming as gods.” Yet Hart (in “The Anti-Theology of the Body”) maintains that there is a pathetic paradox in this hubris: “The materialist who wishes to see modern humanity’s Baconian mastery over cosmic nature expanded to encompass human nature as well — granting us absolute power over the flesh and what is born from it, banishing all fortuity and uncertainty from the future of the race — is someone who seeks to reach the divine by ceasing to be human, by surpassing the human, by destroying the human. It is a desire both fantastic and depraved: a diseased titanism, the dream of an infinite passage through monstrosity, a perpetual and ruthless sacrifice of every present good to the featureless, abysmal, and insatiable god who is to come.”
In “Reading the Body,” Robert W. Jenson insists that one of the effects of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body is simply to re-focus attention in medical ethics to the human body. So Jenson writes: “I propose that most questions conventionally bundled together as ‘bioethica,’ together with some medical-ethical questions at the boundary, can be cast in the form: Should/may we do (x) with/to bodies that are human? Interpreting bioethical problems as problems about bodies . . . does assume that some entities—such as embryos or even cells—may be regarded as bodies that are human without necessarily insisting that they have the status of human persons.” Jenson continues discussing a number of other bioethical maxims suggested by John Paul II’s remarkable reminder of the biblical teaching of the meaning of the human as centered in the body.If this isn’t enough to encourage you to read the current issue of The New Atlantis, there are also reflections about Paris Hilton and the end of the Star Trek franchise.
Related reading and listening
- Technology and the kingdom of God — FROM VOL. 63 Albert Borgmann (1937–2023) believes Christians have an obligation to discuss and discern the kind of world that technology creates and encourages. (12 minutes)
- The gift of meaningful work — In this lecture, D. C. Schindler argues that genuine work is inherently meaningful and facilitates an encounter with reality and therefore, ultimately, with God. (36 minutes)
- Diverting language from its richest possibilities — FROM VOL. 75 Steve Talbott discusses the rich capacities of language and how technology diminishes them. (18 minutes)
- Automation and human agency — FROM VOL. 150 Philosopher and mechanic Matthew Crawford laments the losses of human skill that correspond with gains in mechanical automation. (21 minutes)
- Seeking control, in white magic and The Green Book — Alan Jacobs on C. S. Lewis’s critique of the modern pursuit of god-like control
- Rosen, Christine — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Christine Rosen is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she focuses on American history, society and culture, technology and culture, and feminism.
- Life, liberty, and the defense of dignity — In a 2003 interview, Leon Kass discussed his book Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics. The unifying theme in the book’s essays is the threat of dehumanization in one form or another. (36 minutes)
- The surrender of culture to technology — FROM VOL. 6Neal Postman discuses the ways in which how we think about the world has been influenced by communications technology, even in its earliest forms. (11 minutes)
- A.I., power, control, & knowledge — Ken Myers shares some paragraphs from Langdon Winner‘s seminal book, Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought (1977) and from Roger Shattuck‘s Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography (1996). An interview with Shattuck is also presented. (31 minutes)
- Technology and social imaginaries — In this interview from 1999, cultural historian David Nye insists that societies have choices about how they use technologies, but that once choices are made and established, a definite momentum is established. (19 minutes)
- Living into focus — As our lives are increasingly shaped by technologically defined ways of living, Arthur Boers discusses how we might choose focal practices that counter distraction and isolation. (32 minutes)
- Albert Borgmann, R.I.P. — Albert Borgmann argues that, despite its promise to the contrary, technology fails to provide meaning, significance, and coherence to our lives. (47 minutes)
- Embedded values and dreams — Felicia Wu Song on why our technologies are not neutral tools
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 154 — FEATURED GUESTS:
Felicia Wu Song, Michael Ward, Norman Wirzba, Carl Trueman, D. C. Schindler, and Kerry McCarthy
- The consoling hum of technological society — Jacques Ellul on the danger of confusing “technology” with “machines”
- We are not Cybermen — Essayist L. M. Sacasas discusses some of the ideas of Ivan Illich, whose work has influenced Sacasas’s own understanding of the anti-human dynamics of technological society. (21 minutes)
- America (not the Church) as the New Creation — David E. Nye on one of the founding myths of America
- Technological choices become culture — David E. Nye insists that societies do have choices about how they use technologies, but that once choices are made and established both politically and economically, a definite momentum is established. (19 minutes)
- Loss of significance — Steve Talbott on how technology alienates us from the world
- Technology as magic — Richard Stivers describes how the hyperrationality of technological societies drives many people to lives guided by instinct, emotion, superstition, and fantasy. Also included in this Feature is an interview with David Gill, who summarizes some of the key ideas in the work of Jacques Ellul, a major influence in the writings of Stivers. (24 minutes)
- All how, no why — Langdon Winner summarizes a key theme in Jacques Ellul’s writing about technology
- Not in tune with the world — Michael Hanby on how the “technological paradigm” flattens our thinking
- What is at stake for us in a self-driving future? — Matthew Crawford vividly details the “personal knowledge” acquired in interaction with physical things, their mecho-systems, and the people who care for them. (16 minutes)
- Wise use of educational technologies — David I. Smith articulates the difficulties Christian schools face as they seek to use technology in a faithful way. (24 minutes)
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 150 — FEATURED GUESTS:
David I. Smith, Eric O. Jacobsen, Matthew Crawford, Andrew Davison, Joseph E. Davis, and Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 148 — FEATURED GUESTS:
Steven D. Smith, Willem Vanderburg, Jeffrey Bilbro, Emma Mason, Alison Milbank, and Timothy Larsen
- How should we then teach? — Following three years of research, David I. Smith discusses what he and his colleagues learned about how educational technologies can be profitable servants and not tyrannical masters. (56 minutes)
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 147 — FEATURED GUESTS:
R. Jared Staudt, Jason Peters, D. C. Schindler, Craig Gay, Mary Hirschfeld, and Patrick Samway
- Lessons from quarantine: Making do with tinned fruit — In this audio reprint of “Wendell Berry and Zoom,” Front Porch Republic editor Jeffrey Bilbro reflects on two metaphors that can help put our new-found “dependency” on web-based video conferencing into perspective: tinned fruit and a prosthetic limb. (17 minutes)
- Science, technology, and the redefinition of the human — In a lecture presented in Washington in 2018, philosopher Michael Hanby argues that the meaning of the human is being radically redefined in our modern “biotechnocracy.” (57 minutes)
- Against the machine — How careless use of mechanistic metaphors obscures the mystery of life
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 116 — FEATURED GUESTS: Stratford Caldecott, Fred Bahnson, Eric O. Jacobsen, J. Budziszewski, Brian Brock, and Allen Verhey
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 113 — FEATURED GUESTS: Steven Shapin, Arthur Boers, Christine Pohl, Norman Wirzba, Craig Bartholomew, and David I. Smith
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 111 — FEATURED GUESTS: Siva Vaidhyanathan, John Fea, Ross Douthat, Ian Ker, Larry Woiwode, and Dana Gioia
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 105 — FEATURED GUESTS: Julian Young, Perry L. Glanzer, Kendra Creasy Dean, Brian Brock, Nicholas Carr, and Alan Jacobs
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 100 — FEATURED GUESTS: Jennifer Burns, Christian Smith, Dallas Willard, Peter Kreeft, P. D. James, James Davison Hunter, Paul McHugh, Ted Prescott, Ed Knippers, Martha Bayles, Dominic Aquila, Gilbert Meilaender, Neil Postman, and Alan Jacobs
- Christine Rosen: “Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism” — Christine Rosen examines how social networking is changing the shape of relationships for millions of Americans, and affecting our understanding and experience of friendship. (50 minutes)
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 88 — FEATURED GUESTS: Diana Pavlov Glyer, Michael J. Lewis, Steve Talbott, Darryl Tippens, Everett Ferguson, Alexander Lingas, and Calvin Stapert
- People, people who poke people . . . — Christine Rosen on how social media encourages the unsociable traits of narcissism and exhibitionism.
- “The Image Culture” — Christine Rosen on how the ubiquity of images erodes their power.
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 70 — FEATURED GUESTS: W. Wesley McDonald, C. Ben Mitchell, Carl Elliott, Richard Weikart, Christine Rosen, and Dana Gioia
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 68 — FEATURED GUESTS: Murray Milner, Jr., Steven C. Vryhof, Douglas J. Schuurman, Robert Gagnon, Richard Stivers, and Quentin Schultze
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 66 — FEATURED GUESTS: Leon Kass, Nigel Cameron, Susan Wise Bauer, Esther Lightcap Meek, John Shelton Lawrence, and Ralph Wood
- Human Nature, Human Dignity — Leon Kass outlines what is at stake in our era’s crisis concerning the definition of human nature, and sets forth a framework for indispensable discussions surrounding biotechnologies. (60 minutes)
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 40 — FEATURED GUESTS: Joseph Epstein, John Gray, Kenneth R. Craycraft, Jr., William T. Pizzi, Pamela Walker Laird, Albert Borgmann, Neal Stephenson, and Alan Jacobs
