Self Mastery as Mastering Technology

Heidegger described the totalizing effects of modern technology as seeking "to order everything so as to achieve more and more flexibility and efficiency." Dreyfus, "Nihilism, art, technology, and politics," Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, p. 305. Man himself is drawn into this process. Dreyfus states:

"In this technological perspective, ultimate goals like serving God, society, our fellows, or even ourselves no longer make sense to us. Human beings, on this view, become a resource to be used - but more important, to be enhanced - like any other: 'Man, who no longer conceals his character of being the most important raw material, is also drawn into this process.'" Id. at p. 306.

One of Heidegger's recommendations for an antidote to this process is to participate in "local practices" -- marginal practices -- that resist technology's drive to efficiency. As Dreyfus says, "[W]e must learn to appreciate marginal practices -- what Heidegger calls the saving power of insignificant things -- practices such as friendship, backpacking in the wilderness, and drinking the local wine with friends."

This past weekend I went camping with my wife in Wisconsin at Blue Mound state park. We went hiking, attended mass at St. Ignatius in Mount Horeb, visited a local brewery, took the Cave of the Mounds tour, and visited Little Norway. There we learned that in every craft undertaken by these early pioneers to Wisconsin, they purposefully built in a fault, a slight imperfection to the pattern, in order to remind themselves that man is imperfect, and that humility is the proper attitude toward the world and all we do. I think this is also a good antidote to the technological attitude in which all, including us, become resources for a system of ever greater efficiency. This process, as Dreyfus, notes, results in nihilism, or the loss of human meaning. The idol of technology must be fought with humility. Then we will get ourselves back, we who are bodily and local. If we are "masters of all" we only succeed in enslaving ourselves.