Argument
In Marcuse’s time, and perhaps much more so in current times, technological rationality has been the source of alienation. It maintains an extreme dependence on machines and efficiency. People want to go home to their televisions and computers, thus most of their leisure time is taken over by technology, even the majority of non leisure time is subsumed by portable technics (i.e.,handheld devices and cell phones). This has isolated humans into their private sphere to pursue their own private self interest and a retreat away from the public spheres. People in some sense are comfortable in their dissatisfied lives. They find comfort in the escape and drabness in their daily lives by being subservient to the apparatus. There is much …show more content…
It’s probably futile to accurately predict what the future holds, especially in modern times looking at the rate technology is advancing. If one were to ask people in the early nineteen hundred’s what the world would look like in 2016, not in their wildest dreams would they be able to imagine technologically the world we currently live in. Similarly it is not at all clear where a hundred years from now where the world will stand. Perhaps we would still be subsumed within technological rationality or perhaps something new will emerge. Although by analyzing how things have come to be, how they are, there can be a very rough modeling of the trajectory of society. Looking at the advancement in technology (biotechnology, nanotechnology) perhaps the very notion of what it means to be a human is changing into something different in being able to manipulate and combine technology with our biology. Now to assume a form of pessimism that Marcuse points out where there is no freedom from technological rationality (although there can be a limited amount within it) or the form of optimism of the Transhumanists is beside the point. All that can be done is to describe that one is in now and its …show more content…
Why are we not content with ourselves? Through cleverness, privilege, efficiency one hopes to arrive near the top - though not quite at the top because there is always more and more. Apart from all the social factors why is it that these destructive inward activities maintained? Though inwardly there is turmoil, why does the mind cling to these outward and inward gratifications? There is a constant pursuit of striving to be (this movement is what gives a sense of self), giving the feeling that one is alive, gives some purpose, and the hope of progressively striping away the causes of conflict to arrive at some form of freedom. If this were to stop we feel that we would be nothing, be lost, have no meaning. So the mind continues to strive for one thing or another. The cause of this emptiness is precisely the mind 's desire to become inwardly, psychologically. The mind constantly tries to escape this either by external busy-ness or internal imagination. But the emptiness remains, underlying all this activity. Through the inner and outer activities the mind tries to get some enrichment, whether it is under the name of the highest spirituality or the most vulgar material obsessions is irrelevant. This movement of identification is the very substance of what one is inwardly, there isn 't something that stands behind this identification. All the efforts of the mind to be or not to be something is preventing perception of what
In Marcuse’s time, and perhaps much more so in current times, technological rationality has been the source of alienation. It maintains an extreme dependence on machines and efficiency. People want to go home to their televisions and computers, thus most of their leisure time is taken over by technology, even the majority of non leisure time is subsumed by portable technics (i.e.,handheld devices and cell phones). This has isolated humans into their private sphere to pursue their own private self interest and a retreat away from the public spheres. People in some sense are comfortable in their dissatisfied lives. They find comfort in the escape and drabness in their daily lives by being subservient to the apparatus. There is much …show more content…
It’s probably futile to accurately predict what the future holds, especially in modern times looking at the rate technology is advancing. If one were to ask people in the early nineteen hundred’s what the world would look like in 2016, not in their wildest dreams would they be able to imagine technologically the world we currently live in. Similarly it is not at all clear where a hundred years from now where the world will stand. Perhaps we would still be subsumed within technological rationality or perhaps something new will emerge. Although by analyzing how things have come to be, how they are, there can be a very rough modeling of the trajectory of society. Looking at the advancement in technology (biotechnology, nanotechnology) perhaps the very notion of what it means to be a human is changing into something different in being able to manipulate and combine technology with our biology. Now to assume a form of pessimism that Marcuse points out where there is no freedom from technological rationality (although there can be a limited amount within it) or the form of optimism of the Transhumanists is beside the point. All that can be done is to describe that one is in now and its …show more content…
Why are we not content with ourselves? Through cleverness, privilege, efficiency one hopes to arrive near the top - though not quite at the top because there is always more and more. Apart from all the social factors why is it that these destructive inward activities maintained? Though inwardly there is turmoil, why does the mind cling to these outward and inward gratifications? There is a constant pursuit of striving to be (this movement is what gives a sense of self), giving the feeling that one is alive, gives some purpose, and the hope of progressively striping away the causes of conflict to arrive at some form of freedom. If this were to stop we feel that we would be nothing, be lost, have no meaning. So the mind continues to strive for one thing or another. The cause of this emptiness is precisely the mind 's desire to become inwardly, psychologically. The mind constantly tries to escape this either by external busy-ness or internal imagination. But the emptiness remains, underlying all this activity. Through the inner and outer activities the mind tries to get some enrichment, whether it is under the name of the highest spirituality or the most vulgar material obsessions is irrelevant. This movement of identification is the very substance of what one is inwardly, there isn 't something that stands behind this identification. All the efforts of the mind to be or not to be something is preventing perception of what