In the opening of "Silent Spring," Rachel Carson paints a vivid picture of the damage from uncontrolled use of pesticides. She depicts a scene that is akin to a horror movie. Animals are diseased, plants are dying and an unnatural stillness that comes from a great tragedy covers the land. The worst part of this was that there was no monster or evil that caused the silence. What had caused this was something that humans had done for their own sake. People had begun to spray their crops with a purpose to kill insects. Unintentionally they killed much more than pests and even poisoned themselves.
In the court system of the Untied States, the difference between manslaughter and murder is simply intent. We as a people have determined that it is not the results that we should be punished for, but what we intend to do, the results that we wished to happen. As a result, when great calamities such as the effects of DDT occur, there is no punishment for the crime. Humanity never intends to destroy, yet it almost invariably does. Therefore, it is no great surprise when we shape our environment and change our destines under the ethos of science that disastrous results occur. It appears as though when it comes to technology we often forego foresight, ask the impossible, become dependent on it, and even violate our own rights. In the case of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, we kill ourselves with it.
The most difficult question to answer when considering the after effects of technology is what we should do to correct our mistakes. To find out what we should do, we should answer who or what is responsible. We can always blame the creators of the new technologies for not thinking ahead before implementing their new ideas. The classic example is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, with the young doctor dreaming about his fantastic new powers attained by his own intellect. He has come up with a new way to create life, he tells himself. Here, he glorifies his work:
“Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs. Pursuing these reflections, I thought, that if I could bestow animation up on lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption.”(Shelley, 232)
This shows how the young doctor only thought of the benefits of what he could do. Never did it occur to him what could happen and what did happen. That his creations would be unsightly, that they would have their own minds against him, or that his creation would not be accepted by the general populace. One can allegorize Frankenstein’s monster with every technology that has been introduced, a misunderstood beast that once held great promise but can cause disastrous results.
If we are aware that our lack of foresight can cause significant harm, how is it that history can repeat itself so frequently with technology? Looking at how our advances have caused consequences, from the introduction of DDT to the resistance bacteria are building to antibiotics, why is it that humans continue to invent and introduce new technology without considering every angle?
We can find the answer by looking at the quote above . There he envisions a virtual empire of his creations that would hold love and devotion to him. He sees life after death; he sees his creations as being perfect. He fails to realize the downfalls or to even consider them. The young doctor is an example of the human condition to be lured into fantasies without considering the consequences, as shown in J. Michael Bishop’s essay, Enemies of Promise.
This essay reveals that human beings are taken by the promises of science and think that they can get something for nothing, get everything by doing nothing. This logical fallacy has been applied to science from the start. Not only is it impossible for scientists to predict the full impacts of their work, but to meet the hungry demands of consumers they promise the impossible. Businesses capitalize on the dreams of the scientists and the hopes of the public that technology will cure all ills. This is apparent in Todd Oppenheimer’s essay, The Computer Delusion. With the introduction of computers came the promise of solving the problems of mass education. This is an area that is always tried to be improved by looking for ways to individualize education, for specialists to be able to teach to more people and for teachers far away to be able to educate countless numbers of students. However, this too followed the cycle of promise and shortcomings. Students do not learn faster or perform higher with the introduction of computers in the classroom. What happened was the same thing from when we tried to say that television learning would revolutionize education. Once again we promise the impossible and are disappointed with the results.
These promises cause a technology that has a possibility to improve our quality of life to be overused and cause destruction. It causes the populace to reject the benefits technology can provide because rather than accept cautious introduction of a technology because we must have the impossible dream or nothing at all. As a result the shortcomings of new technologies being implemented and the consequences of the old ones affecting us all are seen.
Not every technology has had an ill result that grossly overrides the benefits. These technologies are employed in our everyday lives. The perfect example of this is the automobile. Especially in American society, where we value the individual -- we drive our cars everyday. We have become dependent on these vehicles and it allows us to live someplace far away from where we work, mobilize goods and services, and to travel to distant places. This dependency unfortunately causes problems. As described in James Q. Wilson’s Cars and Their Enemies, pollution from cars is literally killing people and drowning us in toxic fumes. The simple act of driving cars has become a pain with traffic congestion, constant upkeep and the cost of gas. Now it is too late. The solutions to automobile transportation that Wilson offers in his essay do not solve this dependency and will not satisfy the American need to have individualized transportation.
Individualism is a value that most of us hold dear, and our use of technology infringes on that. In Pamela Samuelson’s Digital Rights War, she explores the impact of information technology. Before the internet or printers or any of the new technologies considering the dissemination of literature there were clear cut rules about what infringed copyrights. Individual work would be credited to the proper author and they would receive their proper pay. Now the line is not so clearly defined and problems are arising. As discussed in Digital Rights War, you can print off your favorite passages of plays to share with your friends, but what about the whole thing? When does sharing become stealing? These questions arise because of technology, and point more towards not technology being at fault, but how people use it.
That is how we must ultimately answer the question of how to correct our mistakes. First it must be understood that it is not the technology that is at fault. The new inventions are simply tools with a purpose in mind. It is our thought on how we treat this technology that causes the problems. It starts with the inventors who fail to see or warn consumers about possible shortcomings of their ideas, businesses’ promises, continues with consumer demanding the impossible, and ends with overuse and dependence on a technology.
Once we see who is responsible for which part, then it is easier to determine what we should do to correct our mistakes. How we implement that technology will always be a debate. There are many varying opinions about what is best for society and how we should govern ourselves. The things that must be recognized is that technology is a tool to be used, and the technology itself or further development of it cannot be responsible. Cars do not drive themselves and pollute our atmosphere. It is people who drive everyday emitting pollutants, and people who decide whether or not they want to take measures to safely use technology. The major destructions of mankind have always been by their own hand, and the calamities he has caused are not done with the tools he made but how he used them. It is up to humanity then, how we use the tools. It would be counterproductive to stop using or to stop creating tools for fear of our own demise. This is the solution to the problem of technology along with recognizing that the morals we use to justify the introduction of new technology need to be constantly be examined.
Delegating responsibility and recognizing the morality of technology itself are the only ways we can correct and prevent anything like the story painted in Silent Spring happening again.
Works Citied:
Lunsford, Andrea. Ruskiewicz, John. The Presence of Others. Moller, Marilyn. 3rd Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000.
