Dakota Beacon

Occasionally, waxing philosophical is worth while.
Here are the age-old questions. Who are we? Where are we going? What does our life mean? At first it sounds schmaltzy but it really isn't. We've all asked these questions at one time or another.
History is to culture what memory is to individuals. Without our memory we don't know who we are as individuals. Without knowledge of our history we don't know who we are as a people, as a culture, as a society.
Consider the wonder of technology and specifically of computers. Computers handle massive amounts of information. But they also have their downside as well. Technological advances are not without consequences. Our infatuation with computers and the information they process has blinded us to the downside.
Here are some historical examples of unintended consequences of technology. Benedictine monks invented the mechanical clock in the 1100s. They did so to better regulate their seven periods of devotion throughout the day. By the 1300s, however, the clock was used to regulate the life of workmen and merchants in pursuit of production and business.
Johann Gutenberg, a devout Christian, believed that the invention of his printing press would further the cause of the Roman Catholic Church. Instead, this technological advance resulted in the Reformation by bringing God's Word to the masses of people.
Today, information is treated as a commodity bought and sold. Information is directed at all of us indiscriminately and at no one in particular. Often it is used for entertainment. Even newscasts are programmed as entertainment. Sometimes information is acquired to enhance one's status. We are overwhelmed with information, drowning in information. We have no control over it and, in the end, don't know what to do with it.
It would be incorrect to think that the computer introduced the information age. The information eruption occurred long before. The printing press initiated the information age. Within 50 years of Gutenberg's invention of the first printing press over 100 cities had printed more than 8 million books. That was the beginning of the deluge.
Since that time everything from the telegraph to photography to the silicon chip has amplified the onslaught of information. Newspapers, periodicals, videos, television, radio and, of course, tens of thousands of new books every year open a floodgate of information.
Enter the age of the computer. The most prominent use of the computer is to organize, store and retrieve information with amazing speed. Nothing more. In a sense, the computer is a wonderful toy and a huge distraction. It diverts our attention from the more profound issues of spiritual emptiness and knowledge of who we are. Computers, and the information they process, cannot make our lives more meaningful or humane. They can only generate more information faster.
We are drowning in information without a fundamental foundation as to how to manage it. We don't know what information is relevant and what information is irrelevant. For centuries the West has been undergoing an erosion of the knowledge of who we are and our relation to the universe. In the Middle Ages people believed in the authority of their religion. Today we have no shared comprehensive and consistent world view. Science is our only authority today and more often than not too many of us do not understand the basics of science. We live in a world that often makes no sense without an historical, metaphysical, logical or spiritual foundation.
In a world short on spiritual and intellectual order, everything becomes believable. Too many people are willing to believe anything offered because there is no basis to question, no basis to doubt. There is lacking an integrated conception of the world. As the Bible appropriately states, "And everyone did that which was right in his own eyes."
Confronted with our mass of information packaged, stored and accessible with computers we still face the human condition -- to be born, to live, to die asking the eternal questions. Why am I here? For what purpose? To what end? The human dilemma is as it has always been. There is no escaping ourselves. Computers with all their information are of no help.
Henry David Thoreau, the transcendentalist, would say, "All our inventions are but improved means to an unimproved end." Micah, the Old Testament prophet, has better advice from the Almighty. "He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8)

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at P. O. Box 337, Stanley, ND 58784 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).