Deflating tech catastrophism
There’s no better way to deflate my proclivities for catastrophism—a lifelong project of my long-suffering wife—than writers I respect appealing to authorities like St. Augustine and Wendell Berry. And that’s just what my friends Jeff Bilbro and Alan Jacobs have done in two pieces this week responding to my despairing reflections on digital technology, prompted by Andy Crouch’s wonderful new book, The Life We’re Looking For.
I’m honored by their lovely, invigorating, and stimulating correctives. I think both of them are largely right, and what anyone reading Crouch-on-tech, East-on-Crouch, Bilbro-on-East-on-Crouch, East-on-tech, Jacobs-on-East-on-tech, etc., will see quickly is how much this conversation is a matter of minor disagreements rendered intelligible in light of shared first principles. How rare it is to have more light than heat in online (“bloggy”) disputations!
So thanks to them both. I don’t want to add another meandering torrent of words, as I’m wont to do, so let me aim for clarity (I would say concision, but then we all know that’s not in play): first in what we agree about, second in what we perhaps don’t.
Agreements:
Andy’s book is fantastic! Everyone should buy it and do their utmost to implement its wisdom in their lives and the lives of their households.
The measure of a vision of the good life or even its enactment is not found in its likelihood either (a) to effect massive political transformation or (b) to elicit agreement and adoption in a high percentage of people’s lives.
Digital is not the problem per se; Mammon is. (Both Jeff and Alan make this point, but I’ll quote Alan here: “the Digital is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mammon.” I’ll be pocketing that line for later use, thank you very much.)
We cannot expect anything like perfection or wholesale “health”—of the technological or any other kind—in this life. Our attempts at flourishing will always be imperfect, fallible, and riddled with sin.
Christians are called to live in a manner distinct from the world, so the task of resisting Mammon’s uses of Digital falls to us as a matter of discipleship to Christ regardless of the prospects of our success.
Actual non-metaphorical revolutionary political change, whether bottom-up or top-down, is not in the cards, and (almost?) certainly would bring about an equally unjust or even worse state of affairs. Swapping one politico-technological regime for another turns out to mean little more than: meet the new boss, same as the old boss. A difference in degree, not in kind.
What we need is hope, and Christians have good grounds for hope—though not for optimism, short of the Kingdom.
What is possible, in faith and hope, here and now, is a reorientation (even a revolution) of the heart, following Augustine. That is possible in this life, because Christ makes it possible. Jeff, Alan, and Andy are therefore asking: Which way are we facing? And what would it take to start putting one foot in front of the other in the right direction? Yes. Those are the correct questions, and they can be answered. And though I (I think defensibly) use the language principalities and powers with respect to Digital, I do not disagree that it is not impossible—check out those negatives piling up one on another—for our digital technologies to be bent in the direction of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Which is to say, toward Christ’s Kingdom.
Now to disagreements, which may not amount to disagreements; so let us call them lingering queries for further pondering:
For whom is this vision—the one outlined above and found in Andy’s book—meant? That is, is it meant for Christians or for society as a whole? I can buy that it is meant for the church, for some of the theological premises and commitments I’ve already mentioned. I’m less persuaded, or perhaps need persuading, that it is one that “fits” a globalized secular liberal democracy, or at least ours, as it stands at the moment.
Stipulate that it is not impossible for this vision to be implemented by certain ordinary folks (granting, with Jeff, that Christians are called not to be normies but to be saints: touché!). I raised questions of class in my review and my blog posts, but I didn’t see class come up in Jeff or Alan’s responses. My worry, plainly stated, is that middle-to-upper-middle-class Americans with college degrees, together with all the familial and social and financial capital that comes along with that status, are indeed capable of exercising prudence and discipline in their use of digital technology—and that everyone else is not. This is what I meant in the last post when I drew attention to the material conditions of Digital. It seems to me that the digital architecture of our lives, which in turn generates the social scripts in which and by which we understand and “author” our lives, has proven most disastrous for poor and working class folks, especially families. They aren’t the only people I mean by “normies,” but they certainly fall into that category. It isn’t Andy et al’s job to have a fix for this problem. But I do wonder whether they agree with me here, that it is not inaccurate to describe one’s ability to extricate oneself even somewhat from Digital’s reach as being a function of a certain class and/or educational privilege.
In which case, I want to ask the practical question: How might we expand our vision of the good life under Mammon’s Digital reign to include poor and working class families?—a vision, in other words, that such people would find both attractive and achievable.
If pursuing the good life is not impossible, and if it begins with a reorientation of the heart to the God we find revealed in Christ, then it seems to me that—as I believe Jeff, Alan, and Andy all agree—we cannot do this alone. On one hand, as we’ve already seen, we require certain material conditions. On the other hand, we need a community. But that word is too weak. What we need is the church. This is where my despairing mood comes in the back door. As I’ve written elsewhere, the church is in tatters. I do not look around and see a church capable of producing or sustaining, much less leading, prudent wisdom in managing the temptations of Digital. I see, or at least I feel, abject capitulation. Churches might be the last place I’d look for leadership or help here. Not because they’re especially bad, but because they’re the same as everyone else. I mean this question sincerely: Is your local church different, in terms of its use of and reliance on and presumptions about technology, than your local public schools, your local gyms, your local coffee shops? Likewise, are your church’s leaders or its members different, in terms of their relationship to Digital, than your non-Christian neighbors? If so, blessings upon you. That’s not my experience. And in any case, I don’t mean this as some sort of trump card. If our churches are failing (and they are), then it’s up to us to care for them, to love them, and to do what we can to fix what’s ailing them, under God. Moreover, the promise of Christ stands, whatever the disrepair of the church in America: the gates of hell shall not prevail against his people. That is as true now as it ever was, and it will remain true till the end of time. Which means, I imagine my friendly interlocutors would agree, that we not only may have hope, but may trust that God’s grace will be sufficient to the tasks he’s given us—in this case, the task of being faithful in a digital age. Yes and amen to all of that. The point I want to close with is more practical, more a matter of lived experience. If we need (a) the spiritual precondition of a reasonably healthy church community on top of (b) the material precondition of affluence-plus-college in order (c) to adopt modest, though real, habits of resistance to Mammon-cum-Digital … that’s a tall order! I hereby drop my claim that it is not doable, along with my wistful musings about a Butlerian Jihad from above. Nevertheless. It is profoundly dispiriting to face the full height of this particular mountain. Yes, we must climb it. Yes, it’s good know I’ve got brothers in arms ready to do it together; we don’t have to go it alone. But man, right now, if I’m honest, all I see is how high the summit reaches. So high you can’t see to the top of it.
