CPT ALFREDO G BALLERA JR PN(M)

1126 words

Democracy and Technology

Part III of Book 1

If the past determines or in some way influences the present, the present
invariably reverses the process. It can be visualized when you are making a movie
film of the events of the process where each frame of the film serves as “snapshot”
picture of the state. If you run the film backward through a movie projector, you can
see that the events change in chronological order distinguishing the past from the
future.

One of the more corroborative proof of this syllogism and logical reasoning is
the philosophy advocated by Thomas Jefferson in which a rural society is seen as
superior to an urban society. It deeply values the independent farmer as superior to

the paid laborer. In this time of Jefferson, it is up to the rural people to exalt, in their
silent fashion, the quiet ambition to achieve happiness. A society so industrialized as
to leave no room for family-size farming would be devastated by unchecked lust for
power. As a whole, this philosophy values farming as a way of life which can shape

ideal values.

In the third part of the Democracy and Technology, rural democracy was one
of the things that was being put in great highlight which is engaged in a contrast

which sharpens its significance. Democracy on the level of the state depends to a
large extent on the intensity of democratic life in the rural community. A democratic
polity is hardly possible in a nation in which the countryside is subjected to oligarchic
rule, whether by landlords of the old-fashioned type or by companies. Its pattern has
continued to exercise influence throughout the history of the American people.
Basically, it is deeply committed in giving priorities for the “yeoman farmer”,
“planters”, and the “plain folk”. It plays the antagonist role to the aristocratic elitism of
merchants, bankers, and manufacturers, and distrusted factory workers.
 The political ideal of the Americans, in so far stick to the old theory as it
makes democracy dependent upon the ways of rural life, gives verisimilitude to the

theory that a technological society does not admit of democratic government. Over a
century ago Saint-Simonism set forth, in an atmosphere saturated with romantic
kindness, the construct of a society shaped by the power of technology. The Saint-
Simonists voiced the great hope of their time as they announced that domination
over physical nature, through science and industry, would supersede the domination
of man over man and that the rational exploitation of nature would put an end to the
exploitation of man by man. The cause and the ways of these substitutions were
explained in the Exposition of the Doctrine of Saint-Simon, made by the disciples a
few years after the death of their master. They expressed themselves as if predatory
practices, war, conquest, enslavement, and, more generally, domination of man over
his fellow-men originated in the lust for wealth. Ever since the early phases of
industrialism it has been said that big industry treats the laborer as a servant of the

machine and destroys his personality. Unfortunately, as the notion that industrial
expansion meant the reign of peace enjoyed a high degree of popularity, the
atmosphere of brotherly love had also dried up in the meantime. To sum it up, the
reasons why the Americans stick to the traditional belief that small communities of
landowning farmers constitute the soundest foundation for democracy can be
explained through the three propositions: (1) Rural life favors an ideal of happiness
and thereby discourages lust for power; (2) it gives citizens the best possible chance
for training in self-government; and lastly, (3) it favors community feelings.

One of these points calls for preliminary elaboration. The pursuit of happiness
comprises every pursuit, whether of power or of anything else. Happiness is the all-
embracing and naturally determined object of all acts of will, and in a certain sense it
is improper to set in opposition happiness and, say, power, since no one seeks
power except inasmuch as he places his happiness in it. However, the superiority of
rural life with regard to community feelings does not hold in all respects and is not
unqualified. In old-fashioned rural families, community feelings are generally
restricted to a narrow group and are accompanied by isolationist dispositions which
may prove acutely antisocial.
 On the other hand, the notion of technological society calls for a great deal of
preparatory elaboration, the first step of which concerns technique itself and its
relation to human use. A technique is a rational discipline designed to assure the
mastery of man over physical nature through the application of scientifically

determined laws. The positive relation of technique to use can be most relevantly
expressed by saying that the first law of a technological society is a tendency to
remain technological. A society is in many respects a frightening thing to live in. But,
in order that the urge toward simpler ways of life should not lead into antisocial
dreams, it must be understood once and for all that our societies will not cease to be
technological unless their technical power is destroyed by unprecedented and
altogether undesirable catastrophes.

Techniques concerned with man's appetite involve terrific danger of bad use.
Keeping these techniques under control is a task of major importance, which may

prove as difficult as that of controlling the deadliest forms of physical energy. In the
light of history, it is to be expected that the wrong use of techniques, on a large
scale, will never cease to run concomitantly with their good use. The final picture is
neither one of inevitable progress nor one of inevitable decadence. It is rather that of
a double movement carrying mankind, through the fire of sharp conflict, toward
greater good and toward greater evil. Maritain described this twofold movement as a
general feature of man's earthly destiny. By increasing the power of man, technique
supplies a major contribution to this antinomic aspect of history. What societies can
do for righteous use is not enough to solve the antinomy, but it may be enough to
restrain effectually the tendency of techniques to produce extreme evil, and it may be
enough to release all the technical forces that are friendly to man.

At the conclusion of this long exposition, a fresh effort is needed to overcome

the depressing effect of what sounds like a hopeless platitude. The rural environment
is in many respects the more favorable to the ethic of democracy; yet some phases
of democratic life are greatly enhanced by technology. All that is necessary is
awareness of a link between farm life and the preservation and promotion of things
that can never become indifferent to men -- communion with universal nature, the
conquest of time through everlasting faithfulness, temperance, dignity in poverty,
holy leisure, and contemplation.
 REFERENCES

Chapter v. (n.d.). Retrieved December 01, 2020, from

https://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/pdg-5a.htm

The doctrine of Saint-simon: AN EXPOSITION. first Year, 1828–1829. translated

with notes and an introduction by Georg g. Iggers.

Gutenberg. (n.d.). Retrieved December 01, 2020, from

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1998/1998.txt

Lumen Christi Institute. (2019, December 07). Retrieved December 01, 2020, from
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