Saturday, September 8, 2012

The Death of The Common Soul

     Some may call me a Luddite, but I have an inherent fear of technology, and not an unfounded one.As I write this my fingers are slowly being dissolved by the corrosive nature of the internet flowing through the keys, each deliberate stroke draining some of the soul and innocence from my body. I believe that technology has wholly undermined our entire society, it has made possible perversions of human life that have crippled the soul.
      Cell phones and the internet have both caused severe maleficence to the human soul. Before their invention people lived very real and visceral lives, and were only concerned with their own intellect, what they were. But the more we have become connected to one another through social media and text messaging the more that sense of self begins to fade out. Our personality and views of ourselves have become embedded in the minds and opinions of others. Instead of being an individuals with souls and worth to our existence, we become merely conglomerates of the thoughts and  opinions of others. 
     Before this onset of widespread communication, one had bountiful time to oneself, and only had to associate with others when they expressly wanted to. This time spent alone with ones own thoughts, original thoughts, was what made the spirits of people so strong, what made life worth living. How much more bountiful spiritually is a life free from distractions? Where and unperverted view of the world is all you know, a life Thoreau would marvel at. but then distraction marched in one by one, the television, the cell phone, personal computers, and possibly most detrimental, the internet. Television showed kids who would normally be playing outside or reading to enrich their intellect, that there was a much easier way to spend your time, glued soundlessly to the front of a glass tube. Cell phones made us inseparable from one another, putting everyone you ever knew just a touch away from anywhere in the world, nowhere was safe any longer. Computers and the internet came hand in hand to not only devastate a large portion of the service sector of the economy, but also to throw off the shackles of ever having to remember anything, who needs intellect now that we have Google?
     Kids now are shown to be worse at memorization of important facts than our for bearers and its because we no longer have the need; Our society has given up intelligence for the ability to plug into some vast global network. Instead of scientists and historians, we have become secretaries of knowledge. I find it ironic; Man's eternal race to improve himself has led to the development of these technologies, and they have become the harbingers of decadence, the beginning of the end for mankind. I believe mechanical technology made the arduous life of man easier, but we have stepped to far and our lives are now to easy to produce real man as he was meant to be.
        I don't hate technology, the wheel and the can opener were alright by me, but the extent to which things have gone is both unhealthy and immoral. We've given up a warm analogue world of hearth fires and pocket-watches for a cold digital one of steel and circuit-boards. 

No comments:

Post a Comment