There has been much talk of late regarding the possible paths of the future. There are, as far as I can tell, two directions in which commentators feel the world to be going. The first is towards the expansion of technology and the sustenance of the great machine civilization in which we live—solutions to the environmental crisis, increasing government oversite fueled by invasive technologies, the growing malleability of the human body and environment. The second path leads along the downward slope, towards a dark age, a social collapse caused by depleted fuel reserves, economically impractical energy solutions, cultural degeneration, and political crisis.
It should go without saying that both of these predictions are seen by various commentators as utopian, catastrophic, or somewhere in between. If one were to hazard a guess, it appears that the technological future is the one that most of us are hoping for, if for no other reason than it presents the fewest disruptions to our lives as they currently exist. While many have expressed skepticism towards the plausibility of vast technological solutions to the increasingly burdensome problems that technology has caused over the last hundred years or so, the average citizen seems content to continue living as if the solutions to the vast destabilization of the world are on their way and ready to be implemented.
I would like to suggest, however, that this may not be as desirable as it appears at first sight. It would of course be wonderful if we could create an environmentally sustainable society in which electricity and all of its benefits still exists, and yet the prospect of ever-growing technological power is one that should frighten us, as history shows the darker elements of humanity are magnified in proportion to the power that human beings wield. Of course, one can (and should) argue that the beneficent energies of humanity also grow with that power and that ultimately it is the good in the human soul that is the more natural, the more prone to expression, and the evil that is the disease, the twisted and unnatural state. This is true enough, and yet it only takes a single paroxysm of sin while wielding the strength of the modern era to cause the destruction of entire habitats, cities, gene pools. Moreover, the attitudes and spiritual conditioning that arise from the pursuits and maintenance of power are rarely, if ever, conducive to the responsibility and magnanimity that might qualify one to wield it. Thus, one may safely assume that a society or individual holding the greatest degree of power is the least qualified to do so.
Given the prospect of an increasingly powerful elite and the increasing depravity that such power tends to attract, we may be forgiven for thinking that it would simply be better if a limit was placed on this kind of advancement, and simplicity enforced by necessity. Such limits are around us all the time, and while we may resent them, they are very often for our good. Indeed, as Gregory of Nyssa pointed out, even death serves this function. For when humanity fell away from the good and chose evil, death—besides being the natural consequence of being sundered from the God who is life—set a natural limit to the depths into which humanity may fall. In this death, moreover, the soul may be separated from the vices of the body, which twist and pull it out of its natural orbit. And in the resurrection the body is reconstituted pure, like silver that has been purified by fire.
So too in the life of a society may we justly hope for a death and resurrection, a dissolution and reconstitution in a more peaceable key, however corrupt such a state may be in comparison to the recreation of all things. Already there is rampant corruption among us and the whispers of a vision yet more horrible. One need only think of the deranged fantasy of a genetically engineered sub-human slave race that has been floated in recent years by supposedly serious intellectuals. While such horrors may be far-fetched, they are not outside the realm of plausibility. The deep problems of our technology are already around us, moreover. We see vast swaths of individuals enslaved to media, being fed corruption, insecurity, and product placement. Governments everywhere utilize spyware or systematically monitor populations, trash clogs our streets and rivers, the human body is regularly mutilated in the name of “freedom,” and almost everywhere a deep, horrifying apathy and meaninglessness reign. It is possible that a step in the cure of these maladies involves upheavals through which there sources may be limited.
As we face these dilemmas and are inundated with talk of “getting back to normal” or of creating a new, better “normal,” we should seriously consider what a sane world might look like. I believe that if we look closely, we will see that a fostering of the small scale may be our only solution. This is not to say that large-scale changes are not necessary, but they are largely out of reach for the average person. For most of us, the fostering of community, the acquisition of skills for sufficiency and intimacy, and the building of life on a human scale are the only possibilities that present themselves. And they are the most necessary. We should not expect sudden large-scale solutions to paste a new and better world onto this one, or even to maintain a comfortable status quo. It is the small and rooted that will survive and that can grow into something more precious, more livable.
Robert Browning, in his poem “Love Among the Ruins,” articulates precisely just such a vision of the end of temporal glory and the beginning of a new glory. It is this glory that we ought to seek.
Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,
Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro’ the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop—
Was the site once of a city great and gay,
(So they say)
Of our country’s very capital, its prince
Ages since
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
Peace or war.
.
Now the country does not even boast a tree,
As you see,
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
From the hills
Intersect and give a name to, (else they run
Into one)
Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires
Up like fires
O’er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
Bounding all
Made of marble, men might march on nor be prest
Twelve abreast.
.
And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
Never was!
Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o’er-spreads
And embeds
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
Stock or stone—
Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
Long ago;
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.
.
Now—the single little turret that remains
On the plains,
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
Overscored,
While the patching houseleek’s head of blossom winks
Through the chinks—
Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
Sprang sublime,
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
As they raced,
And the monarch and his minions and his dames
Viewed the games.
.
And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve
Smiles to leave
To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey
Melt away—
That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
Waits me there
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
For the goal,
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb
Till I come.
.
But he looked upon the city, every side,
Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades’
Colonnades,
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,—and then
All the men!
When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
Either hand
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
Of my face,
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Each on each.
.
In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and North,
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
As the sky
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force—
Gold, of course.
O heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
Earth’s returns
For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!
Shut them in,
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
Love is best.
Insightful commentary on contemporary society. Would only we be allowed to scale down, reinstate "the commons," and revert back to the many unique cultures founded upon resources native to the communities' homes.
But, alas, the powers that be forge mightily ahead with other plans...by contrast, Browning is beautiful. Thank you.