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Stefan H. Farr

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Debate: Our culture isn't adapting to our rapidly progressing technology.

There is a lot of talk about the current economic crises. Projections, promises or just plain old confusion, everybody seems to have an opinion on when and how it will get resolved or on the contrary how it will not resolve, but rather bring about the end of us.

Personally, I believe that it "can" resolve, but not by traditional economic measures, because the cause of it is not purely economic in nature. I believe, that this crises stems from a profound conflict brought about by the increasing incompatibility of our cultural, social and economic values with the ever more advanced technological progress that we are accumulating. Our inability to culturally adapt to this rapid technological progress is like a dead weight that impedes our metamorphosis as a species altogether.

Consequently, I believe that the next giant leap in our evolution must be a cultural / spiritual / intellectual / social one and not a technological one. Technologically we are way beyond what we can culturally accommodate and so any more progress in this domain will only deepen the conflict rather than resolve it.

Thank you!

Topics: culture economy society technology
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Closing Statement from Stefan H. Farr

It's been a pleasure reading your comments. Thank you very much everybody for the excellent insight.

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  • Karen Cole

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    Oct 13 2012: Some 40 years ago, when I was a teenager, the belief was that technology would allow us much more leisure and time to pursue self determined interest and and goals in this life. There was mention of 20 or less hours as the expected working week. Sociologist expressed concern that boredom would lead to atrophy of curiosity and the lack of the need to strive, perhaps a degeneration of the instinct to survive! Instead we have a faster pace of life. We cannot wait for anything but expect " instant" everything ( we are aggrieved if don't of get it, and ungratefully value it little if we do!).
    There is a degeneration of familly life, " no time to stop and stare". We talk of "quality" time as a few hours spent with our loved ones in a week of rushing around like a hive of demented bees! There needs to be a balance. Technology yes, it a great boon, and produces wonderful tools but they are only a tools. No doubt the invention of the wheel produced a similar gasp of awe! We must solve our sociological and population problems if the human race is to survive the next 1000 years. How we we do that? Is it possible? Can our planet survive 9 billion people, what about after that, 20 billion, 40? Do we HAVE to try it to find out? We have challenged nature who dispenses with an excess of any species without mercy, what will we replace her cruelty with ? Money ? A legal life span limit? no children till grandma dies ? Or are we lemmings to fill the planet so full of our own kind we push each over the edge ( mentally if not physically)?

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