Dependence brings us closer to nature
David Rothenberg's e-mail interview by Maria Åkerman
To fully understand all the aspects of interaction between man and nature and the role of technology in the human relationship with nature we should combine philosophical, aesthetical, political and ethical points of view. David Rothenberg, a jazz clarinetist and professor of humanities has challenged the borders between disciplines. He has spoken about nature as writer, philosopher, ecologist, and musician. By founding a new literary magazine Terra Nova in 1996 he has also created a new cultural forum for ecologic discussion.
David Rothenberg is a respected authority on deep ecology. He has studied in Norway with Arne Naess and has documented his time there and the history and foundation of radical environmentalism in two books, Is It Painful to Think? Conversations with Arne Naess, and Wisdom in the Open Air: The Norwegian Roots of Deep Ecology . One aspect of the diverse work of David Rothenberg has been philosophy of technology. In his book, Hand's End: Technology and the Limits of Nature. , published in 1993 he asks how we may direct technology in the future so that we will be brought closer to the environment, not further away from it.
David Rothenberg is associate professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. EKO.FI had an opportunity to discuss via e-mail with David Rothenberg on the role of technology and especially the role of new information technology in regards to man and nature. Also included here is David Rothenberg's article "Before the end - the safety of distance" where he approaches the moral aspects of destructive technology.
Presently you are combining your work as musician and philosopher at the New Jersey Institute of Technology where you are as well working on new media. What is your main field of study at the moment?
I am concerned with how technology changes the way we see and understand the world. I am concerned with the fate of nature in our time. I perhaps naively believe ideas can change the future. I want people to think about our relationship to the environment in a new but exciting, not restrictive way, through increased sensitivity, awareness, and wonder at our surrounding context. Through a merger of literature and philosophy, and also through music and new media, I think we can express and reflect upon our situation in radically new ways.
During 1980s you studied in Norway and translated deep ecologist Arne Naess's book "Ecology, Community and Lifestyle" from norwegian to english. What is your relationship to the deep ecology movement?
Deep ecology as defined by Arne Naess means believing that change in the way we conceive the world can change our practical relationship to nature. This I support. The simplistic political and one-sided pronouncements of some deep ecologists I cannot support.
What kind of contribution does the holistic point of view of deep ecology bring into the understanding of technology or machine?
Too many deep ecologists single out technology as the villain. But hiking boots, clothing, food, maps, writing--all this stuff is technology too. We cannot be human without technology. And technology, if it is successful, can bring us closer to nature, not further away.
If you understand the full extent of a technology: where it comes from, who makes it, how much it costs in real materials and labor, why we buy it, what we expect, what happens when it transforms our expectations, how the machine makes us want and build new things that we never before could dream about, only then can a complete view of the machine and its meaning be realized.
You said that if technology is successful it can bring us closer to nature, not further away from it. This is a point you bring up also in your book Hand's End. Could you specify a bit what you mean?
There are tools like the hoe and the plow that allow humanity to use more of nature, thus be closer to it. Plus things like telescopes and microscopes that allow us to SEE more of nature. As to art, one good say that if it is GOOD art, it teaches us to see the world in a new and illuminating away. That may include seeing more possibilities within nature.
You say that technology allows us to use more nature and see more nature. Do you see that technology could be a way to deepen our understanding of nature ?
Technology can certainly bring us closer to nature. Think how many more resources of the earth we need in order to survive today, as opposed to before the industrial revolution! We need nature more than ever, and that's why it is our society in our time that has had to concern itself with the global environment. We are so close to it. We have a responsibility. We must save it if we are to save ourselves. The planet doesn't care--it has seen enough dominant species come and go. But we care. And we cannot afford not to.
Isn't this development after the industrial revolution a process of alienation from nature? We have lost the sensitivity towards nature and are overusing natural resources, producing wastes and believing that technology that has caused the problems is also a solution to the problems?
Well, that is the standard answer. But the next step is not a return to any earlier way of being, but a genuine RESULT of the industrial and information revolutions: only now do we see the need to care. Alienation is old news. Our society must move forward to global concern for nature. You could say it is serious devastation that has led us to this point. Or you could say it is increasing DEPENDENCE on ever more of nature that leads to this view. I see now total paradigm shift, however, but an evolution of our way of thinking to a new way. It is not an about-face, and above all not a return to an earlier way of being.
Machines are created by man and they are often defined by their instrumental value. On the other hand machines influece the human thought and cultural development significantly. Can machines be seen as organisms without people, thus do they have any specific nature or role in the whole of nature that is independent of human?
A multifarious question! Machines mean nothing without those who made them. Think of the famous Antikythera device, an ancient Greek mechanism discovered a few years back, that we do not understand. What's it for? We have no idea. Without its makers a machine is just a perplexing whirr of gears and metal.
Today's machines are incredibly abstract. Tiny spots of silicon. Invisible circuits. Information adrift. No one person can understand how even a single chip processes all its instructions. But there are rules that guide machines.They can be explained.
Nature is more that the rules we have placed there. It will always elude full explanation. A machine can be part of nature if it, too, can contain mystery.
How does the role of technology or machines differ from the role of art regarding the relationship between man and nature? What importance has the mythical side of technology?
The ancient greek word 'techne' meant both technology and art. There should be no difference. Aristotle thought that techne should complete what nature had started but then left unfinished. So by working with the spaces left by nature we struggle to fit in with nature.
I think this idea still holds, explaining how humanity can both come from nature and feel wrenched away from it. Technology changes what beauty means, but it should not avoid taking a stand on beauty.
How about the ethics of technological accidents. Paul Virilio says that all technologies have their special accidents attachedthat they are not hazards but necessities. Every time we develop a new technology we also develop a new specific type of accident that can't be avoided in the long run.We can manage the accidents by developing better technology but it also necessarily brings a new accident within.
If this is true why do you think that technological accidents in this wider sense are usually not seen as moral questions while considering the development of technology?
Technological accidents ARE increasingly seen as moral questions. If, as I do, you teach at an engineering school, you see the increasing consideration of SAFETY as the ultimate ethical standard engineers must uphold. All codes of professional conduct in engineering are based on this point. The problem is, concern for safety is always juxtaposed with market forces. What is safest may cost too much, and the managers may veto it.
Often the problem comes down to communication. Those building the technologies have a hard time getting the message across to those who are buying and selling it, and those worried about it often lack the wherewithal to become well-informed.
What kind of special accident is information technology bringing with?
Information technology is on the surface much safer than devastating technologies like nuclear weapons, but as information becoms increasingly available about who we are and what we own and want, privacy becomes especially important. Computers are easy to break into. The other day all the student loans were suddenly erased from my university's computer! Other students say it was a hacker who did it. Why would he endanger the welfare of his fellow students? The loans were insured, rumor has it. Too often the perpetrators of such crimes are rewarded by jobs in computer security rather than punished. That should stop.
Could you to the end define what you personally think are the most important ethical questions in the expansion of technology?
If you are considering a new technology, always ask, "Does this new tool allow me to do something important that no previous tool can permit? Will it be worth something a year or two years from now, or is it (like so much computer technology), simply a bad investment?"
For example, many libraries these days are short on cash. So they say they cannot afford to buy books. But somehow there is always money for the latest computer equipment, equipment that will be worthless in four or five years. Books are a more proven, better investment. Plus they're cheaper.
Consider long term investment, not immediate gratification. Think of the side effects of the new toy. Will you spend hours a day surfing through a Web of amorphous information, or advertising pointers to information? Will you neglect your work, family or friends? Will a telephone reduce your need to see people in person? Will getting a car mean you no longer bike to work and get less exercise? Etc. etc.
Questioning technology should be PART of its development, not an afterthought. Then criticism will lead to better tools and machines, and not be seen as a negative afterthought.
Thank You David for the interesting discussion. We welcome you to University of Art and Design in Helsinki Finland as a visiting researcher next year.
Before the end - the safety of distance, David Rothenberg