Transcription
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Years ago, one winter, I was living on the south side of Chicago and working in the city's downtown area. As I walked into the underground train station one night, I saw a man sitting on the floor. He was homeless, a fact which is so tragically unremarkable that I may not even need to mention it at all. In front of him on the ground, there was a long, round, dark object. It was all black, as black as the asphalt above us.
Hovering over the man was another individual, dressed in a doctor's uniform, carrying a bag. My best guess was that he was on the way home from his job at some medical facility. The doctor was imploring the man on the ground, who was unresponsive, to go to the emergency room, that if he didn't get to the hospital, he would die. This elicited no verbal response from the man on the ground. In fact, he didn't even move.
The doctor gave up pretty quickly. He had a train to catch. And as I got closer, it became more clear what the object on the ground was, or rather, that it was not an object at all. It was the man's bare leg, rotting in matte black from his ankle to his knee. The leg was so swollen, so ballooned, that it lacked the contours human anatomy should have given it. It looked dry and brittle. I couldn't help but imagine pushing my finger through his limb and feeling it crumble. If I did this, I further imagined, I would find some purple-gray liquid that was not at all what a human leg should contain.
Of course, I didn't do this. I walked by the man, hypnotized by this rotten limb, not understanding how something so dead could be attached to a living person. The city of Chicago, and all of its intelligence, had deemed this issue to be undeserving of attention. Dozens of passers-by just passed him by. I did the same. American humanity had assembled all of its mental, spiritual, and economic power to create The Shining City of Chicago. The city was a metropolis, a beacon of human technological achievement, progress crystallized by concrete and rebar. And yet, it all seemed to add up to this: a human rotting on the ground, passed by because we all just had trains to catch. I didn't understand how this could be.
I know that this incident in itself is just that, an incident, a specific problem with its own mechanical solutions. But perhaps I am just not a mechanical person. So it began within me a long, slow disillusionment with metropolitan life and, by association, even with the modern notion of progress. I'd like to talk about that.
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Now, Henry David Thoreau was a 19th-century writer and leader of the transcendentalist movement. Aside from its being as a religious movement, the school of thought believed in the inherent goodness of nature and humanity. Transcendentalists, though, noted that modern systems and technologies had spoiled this goodness. To be more immediate, Thoreau was famous for his work *Walden*. In 1845, Thoreau moved to a small, isolated cabin in the forest around Walden Pond, Massachusetts. Thoreau lived there for two years, eventually producing the book *Walden* based on his experiences. For the author, this was an experience in simple living.
He observed that rather than deliberate living, most people simply accepted that life was a series of waking up, working, going to bed, and repeating. He noted that this was not really by any fault of the individual. Thoreau writes, "When we consider what are the true necessities and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other, yet they honestly think there is no choice left." People's values were chosen for them by the culture into which they were born. The modern world did not offer sufficient time or space for an individual to arrive at their own conclusions about life. It was financially, materially impossible to engage in this self-examination. A person was just too busy. So instead, the world forced judgments onto a person. It told each individual what was important and unimportant, and the person, more often than not, accepted those judgments whether or not they felt any innate attraction to them.
The result of this passive value acceptance had been, Thoreau noted, a culture of rampant but somehow passive materialism. Indeed, today we seek happiness in riches because the world has told us that is where happiness is to be found. In reality, we will never find happiness in these things. They are distractions from discovering true and eternal fulfillment. Thoreau points to a farmer who has inherited a barn, cattle, and farm tools. This circumstance could be celebrated. The farmer now had a means to make a living. But in reality, these things were not gifts to the farmer; they were burdens, and they were obligations thrust onto him by powers far outside of his own. Thoreau suggests that if the farmer had been born into the wild, suckled by a wolf, he may have been better off. He may have been free to find his own pasture, his own calling.
You see, upkeeping the farm does not just cost the farmer money; it costs toil and trouble. It costs time, time that could be used to explore what the farmer himself actually wanted and valued. The farm costs life. And so, the farmer, from birth, is born to dig his crops and also his grave. But to abandon these inheritances is equally treacherous. How then would he make a living? As far as I can tell, such is our modern version of humanity. We have all inherited this farm of technology, the crops of our systems, the implements of trade, banking, and commerce. In one breath, we thank the skies for such a prosperous world, while not recognizing that this so-called prosperity is also a vampire. It truly drains our lives. It forces our hand, forces us to exist within its never-ending loop. And just like the farmer, to abandon these things would destroy our civilization.
Thoreau notes that "most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that." All of our knowledge and efforts must be thrust into the market, into the modern system of living, so that we simply cannot use any to explore our innermost selves. Even as I type this, the idea of exploring what it means to be alive comes to me as so bizarrely abstract. It is like a distant shout from the outside, barely discernible, more likely attributed to the noise of some events on the street, and far easier to simply ignore than examine. In this way, we are pushed to not only ignorance of our existence but to the ignorance of this ignorance. We just don't know any better.
In battle against all of this, Thoreau stripped life back to its most bare essentials. At Walden Pond, he sought to live deliberately. This was to lead life with intention, to arrive at conclusions and judgments independently, and to do things on purpose, by your own choosing. Thoreau spent his time at Walden largely in solitude. This word should not be taken to mean just being alone; it is rather to be *with*. It is a very active engagement with the world around oneself. Thoreau noted that he, in fact, at Walden, "had a great deal of company in his house." He said that on his land, he had the company of an old settler, of the man who had first dug his home at Walden Pond. He had the company too of an invisible old woman who he described as owning a wondrously fragrant herb garden. This woman, Thoreau said, told "the original of every fable, and that on which everyone is founded." So Thoreau, in his solitude, is very much not alone. The past, the present, and the future were all in society at Walden, pouring out in the natural world around him. Thoreau's solitude was not indicated by miles of space but rather a nearness, a nearness to himself and to the very fibers of the world, an appreciation for those things which formed and existed infinitely in nature.
Solitude can help us break free from unintentional living. When removed from society, a person is too removed from the distractions it presents. While social dynamics are important for social life, they often override things which otherwise would allow us to flourish. In the developed world, we are ostracized, misunderstood, or admonished for not embracing societal norms. And so, society at large encourages and even requires oppressive conformity. Solitude frees us from these norms and values which we have passively accepted. It removes the barriers which prohibit us from truly knowing ourselves. When we are not bound by these constructs, we can better find what we individually, authentically, and truly believe to be important.
Of course, Thoreau's writing is not so simple, and its context also deserves attention. Thoreau does not declare that all of humankind should return to some primitive, pre-industrial society. Indeed, while at Walden, Thoreau wasn't entirely cut off from the world. He recounts dinners with friends, trips to town, and occasional meetings with townsfolk. Some people have said this invalidates all that he wrote. I disagree. Walden was not created as a man-against-nature tale. In the book, which is basically a diary, Thoreau never proclaims himself as being entirely self-sufficient or living off the land. Instead, it is the desire to simplify life that is the driving force behind *Walden*. It is less of a physical self-reliance that *Walden* espouses, but instead a spiritual self-reliance. Walden is not an outright rejection of modern society, but a quest to better know oneself so that we can discover which parts of society we are suited to. After all, Thoreau himself went quite happily and even ambitiously back to the civilized world after leaving Walden Pond.
Thoreau's idea was not that everyone should follow his lead. Walden was not a guidebook for living, nor a copyable roadmap for happiness. As much as it pains me to admit, instead, it was an exaltation to find your own Walden Pond. In the book, Thoreau writes, "I would not have anyone adopt my mode of living on any account. I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out his own way, not his father's or his mother's or his neighbor's." Instead, there is a school of thought today that happiness is not a cabin in the forest. That to propose this concept, or anything near it, is a suggestion of cowardice. That retreat to nature represents some misguided version of running from your problems. Thoreau did not run from his problems, and neither should we. Quite the opposite: we should follow his example and run *to* our problems. In solitude, we are closest to ourselves, and we can confront all that we know. We can sort the important from the unimportant. We can understand the world around us in ways completely impossible within the confines of systems and social dynamics. In solitude, all we have is our problems. Certainly, this worked pretty well for Henry David Thoreau. As he was dying at just 44 years old, Thoreau said, "I suppose that I have not many months to live, but of course, I know nothing about it. I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing." In the private sense, I think Thoreau's insights are invaluable. Taking individual action can radically transform one's life. But Thoreau's meditations represent a conflict, a conflict of humanity versus itself.
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Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher who has emerged as a rightfully divisive figure. We can discuss that momentarily. For now, we will focus on an essay he wrote called "The Question Concerning Technology." Here, we must first define technology. Heidegger does not say technology to mean just electrics, computers, or circuitry, but instead, it is any object or system which forces the manipulation of the natural world. A factory is technology. A road is technology. A business is itself technology. In his essay, Heidegger investigates what he calls the essence of technology. The essence of technology is that which it truly is. A tree can have green leaves and brown bark, but that doesn't make it a tree. Plenty of trees do not have these things. So what makes a tree a tree? Likewise, Heidegger says, we must find what technology truly is, aside from its various configurations and incarnations.
Heidegger argues that in this conversation, humans have a fundamental misunderstanding. People generally believe that technology is two things: an instrument of human activity and a means to an end. But neither of these have proven to be true in practice. Technology is not an instrument. It is not a tool that humanity wields. If all technology fails tomorrow, humanity would very likely collapse. This is just not how a tool works. Rather, technology is a condition, an event in which humanity exists. And because of this event, we have rearranged our entire world. A tree is no longer a tree, but a resource. It is a thing we can use to fuel technology, to create books and newspapers and timber and houses. Metals found within the earth are no longer metals; they are a resource. The same can be said for any naturally occurring material on Earth. Today, the question always seems to be, "What is this used for?" not "What is this?" So these natural things now exist, like Heidegger says, as part of a global supply closet. This doesn't stop at plants or animals; it extends to humans. You yourself are a resource for technology. The market does not see you as a human with thoughts or feelings or imagination or much of anything besides the potential to fuel some other piece of technology. Within the modern marketplace, your utility is to be some part of a supply chain, a resource no different than trees or rare earth metals.
So, like Thoreau also suggested, technology pulls us farther and farther from reality. We ourselves are distorted into resources, surrounded by these other resources. In this way, technological progress sentences us to ignorance. Aside from being fuel for some technology, we don't know what we really are. This is a whirlpool, a spiral that goes on and on. When repeated across generations, we don't just not know what it means to be human, but we entirely forget that there is even a concept of being human outside of existence as a resource. So again, we become ignorant of our own ignorance.
Technology is not really a means to an end either. It is not a wire that eventually turns on some light bulb. No, it is a circuit, a closed loop. I have found this demonstrated explicitly in the confines of the city. When the American city was constructed, it was done so along a rational, quantifiable set of data. The city will provide an economic boon to the country, perhaps even the world. In the city, we will produce more money, more buildings, and more people. The city is progress. But like Thoreau and Heidegger would have suggested, that progress is not free. The city demands things of its residents. The city needs people to work and create its material and its economic output. So civilians are bossed around and bullied throughout the metropolitan area, not necessarily by any individual, but instead by the city itself. The city demands, "Put aside what dreams or plans you have for your day. The market needs you. Progress needs you. You must wake up at 7:00 a.m. because the train comes at 8:00 a.m., and you must be at the station when the city says, because the shop must open, because people must buy things and pay taxes and produce market prosperity for the city." In a circular sort of conclusion, your reward for doing as the city dictates is continued employment. You must keep catching the 8:00 a.m. train. On the other hand, there is the man dying in the subway with his rotting leg. At some point in his past, he could not catch the 8:00 a.m. train, and so the city has no reason now to help him catch that 8:00 a.m. train. Ultimately, for as much opportunity as cities promise, they are quite effective traps.
Such is the nature of technological progress. We drill for oil to build more things, but now we have more things, so we must drill for more oil. The factory worker builds wrenches, wrenches which are used to maintain that same factory. The robot builds robots. Progress produces itself, but then requires itself, and so it must consume itself again and again. Today, we are so dependent on technology that we cannot really let this loop stop. So we dedicate ourselves as resources to keep it going. But in doing so, we have relinquished control, control of the circuit. We cannot turn it on and off. We are now just in the circuit.
Any conversation of Heidegger should and will include one thing: in 1933, he joined the Nazi party. A year later, he resigned and later called the decision to join "the greatest stupidity of his life." Today, discussions surrounding Heidegger often ignore his ideas and instead focus on this decision and its implications on his work. Academics comb through this topic hundreds of times per year, aimlessly and without any unique purpose or conclusion. And so, Heidegger's work has likewise been transmuted into a resource, not for grappling with technology or changing human direction, but instead a resource for bloated, industrialized, ostensibly free-market academia. And so, we will not engage in that road. We will just say that Heidegger's work must be approached with caution in two directions: caution that we consider it within its context, and caution that we do not ignore it because of this context.
As the years go by and as progress continues, I tend to think his writings have only become increasingly relevant. There has been a rigor of scientific studies that show higher incidences of mental anguish within metropolitan cities rather than more rural areas. Mental illnesses have also risen alongside industrialized society and our collective obsession with technological progress. If these correlations are significant in a determining way, I don't really know. That is a conclusion to be reached by more qualified individuals. I can only say that I have reached other conclusions.
Capitalism, or whatever version of it we live under now, pits the private economy against the public economy. Your choices—food, shelter, clothing, hobbies—are dictated by the needs of the market and your capability within it. Collective action is important, and public reform is most desirable. But it would be a great tragedy to spend one's entire life working for a better world while one's own backyard remains a mess. I think that a retreat, partial or entire, from metropolitan life multiplies our possibilities within the capitalist landscape. This withdrawal allows us to become more free of the world's impositions and the market's desires. In doing so, our eyes are opened to new modalities of life, new forms of happiness which are not based on the arbitrary judgments or clumsy feelings of other people.
There's some great irony in all of this, which is not lost on me. I sit here writing this, perched on the glamorous, foremost part of human technological achievement: the internet, the computer. How can I reconcile this massive inconsistency? My honest answer is that I don't really have an answer. I don't know everything, and this is one of the many things that I do not know. All that I can do, maybe all that I want to do, is express myself, try to improve myself within the world as it exists, and have some hope that I will come out better for the effort.
If we feel hopeless, as I often do within this storm of modernity, we can again examine a Thoreauvian approach. Hope is something that comes from within, and it can resist oppressive forces around us if we are strong enough. It may also be something permanent. In *Walden*, Thoreau wrote that "we must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep." Modern life has lulled us into a sleep with its material demands—money, houses, cars, power—but we should keep hope. Always have hope, no matter how hard we lean on material pleasures, how deeply we sleep. In this way, we should always know that we can one day wake up, that the dawn will be there, waiting just for us.
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