Brain Parade, The First - Alienation

Some time ago we mentioned that our friends at Meme Therapy had invited us to participate in some upcoming Brain Parades. Meme Therapy sent us a few questions, and we here at Memepunks put our heads together to answer them. The first question was rather open ended, and we answered it accordingly. What follows is their question and our answer.

"Do you think technology is contributing to an increasing sense of alienation in modern society?"

Technology doesn't contribute to alienation. Alienation and technology are both byproducts of humankind's continuing evolution. Now that things like upright walking and verbal communication are out of the way, we are evolving through changes to our culture, philosophies, technologies, and economies. Technology is but one manifestation of that evolution. Each of them, culture, economics, philosophy, and technology have their own alienated populations. But technology becomes the usual suspect when you look at the microcosm of the elderly, or the bio-Luddites for example. This is because technologies rate of change is faster and more visible than most other paradigms.

But the real cause of alienation is evolution itself. There are stragglers in every wagon train. The Amish, the neo-Luddites, and the technophobes are just the latest in a long line of evolutionary hold outs. Where ever there is advancement, there will be humans on both ends of the spectrum; Those that are leading the charge into the future, and those bringing up the rear. There are tools at our disposal to cut down on the amount of alienation brought on by continuing evolution. Better education, philosophical hand holding, constructive and open dialog with the fear mongers and the frightened, etc. can all be used to limit the amount of alienation in our society. But alienation will always exist at some level. It has been there since the beginning of our species, and it will be there long after we have become something else.


You can see how other bloggers, authors, and assorted brains answered in part One and Two of the Technological Alienation Brain Parade.