Blech-nology

Seems the time of year to post now and then on the virtues of a good fire. When the weather turns in a couple of months, I expect I'll post more on hiking and stuff, but we took the dog to the park to run today, and at 22 degrees with a breeze, we lasted about fifteen minutes (even as a kid in Alaska, I always hated the cold).

As Sweet Wifey and I sat by the fire not long ago, nursing some adult beverages, I wondered how in the world we as a people ever decided that an evening gathered around the dim blue glow of the television was in any way preferable to an evening of conversation around the warm glow of a fireplace. Why, instead of doing things, would we prefer to watch other people doing things?

Not that I have sworn off the tube. We do enjoy watching Idol together as a family, for instance, and there's Futurama (not to mention G.K. Chesterton - Apostle of Common Sense on EWTN, and Father Corapi, who should have his own channel). But how did the idiot box come to supplant so many human relationships? How many of us have allowed it to rob us of good books and cool hobbies and family time? Surely that wasn't the intention when Philo Farnsworth invented the thing. When I find myself thinking this way, the words of a song by the British space-metal band Hawkwind (OH!, heady college days...) come to mind;

Shoals of dead fish float on the lakes,
but Uncle Sam's on Mars
And science is making the same mistakes,
but Uncle Sam's on Mars
No one down here knows how to work the brakes,
but Uncle Sam's on Mars

Both Tolkien and Chesterton had much to say on the subject of technology run amok. Tolkien had his goblins fascinated with wheels, machines and explosions, and Chesterton made plain his disgust with factories, mills and even the suburbs. What seems most troubling is how these things take on a life and energy of their own. There is no plan. No one knows how to work the brakes.

One particular thing that strikes me about so much of our industrial society is how ugly it is. The architecture, the infrastructure, the technology itself. People need beauty. The human spirit craves it, but we have managed to place natural beauty at arm's length, have - for reasons of survival and efficiency - pushed it to the perimeter. As a result, Most of us don't often see the stars or walk beside a stream. Don't get me wrong... there is no greater fan of indoor plumbing and central heat, but do we have to make everything look so shoddy? So drab? So replaceable?

We have more and greater technological means at our disposal - more power over nature - than any culture before us, and what do we do? We mostly make ugly, disposable crap.

Now, some may argue that because we manufacture such cheap goods that this allows more people to afford more things than they could have otherwise - that this is more efficient. I don't know about that. Take furniture, for instance. Yes, I can go to the discount furniture store or the nearest mass-market retailer and buy a bookshelf pretty cheap. It might last 10 years. Maybe more, with luck. But it will end up at the curb or in a garage sale, eventually. Purchase, toss, repeat.

On the other hand, really good furniture (like a lot of antiques) will have your kids fighting over it after your funeral. It actually (with care) will get better and more valuable with age. It becomes a heritage. This is the kind of efficiency we should be shooting for. It really doesn't cost that much more to make things beautifully and well in the first place. Why buy (in succession) 10 bookcases made of veneered chipboard when you can buy one and have it holding up books with style and grace long after you're worm food? Not always possible, I know (we furnished our first apartment in the classic American Plastic Milk Crate style), but this is , to me, the direction in which we should be thinking.

Tolkien's elves had the right idea. Their magic was for the most part invisible, part of the warp and woof of everything they did and made. I'd like to see our technology treated more in the same way... present, but invisible, working with nature more than against it. Reined in and put in its place, and made a servant again, rather than master.

Comments

[Histor]

Personally, I think Americans use TV as a sort of socially acceptable opiate: if you're watching TV, you don't have to think about anything, least of all get distressed about anything.

Then again, that's just a very prejudiced opinion, based on the fact that a)I don't watch TV and b)I've never seen much of worth on it.

Histor

[Foxfier]

We do have beauty these days, for those that want it-- check out some of the online games, like world of warcraft-- shoot, even Halo has some breath-taking beauty.

[Mary]

I couldn't have put it better myself.
I am a dedicated reader of Chesterton, Tolkien, and Lewis, and appreciate greatly what you've said (in this post and others) about the modern world. I have, in the last couple years, tried to think and act in a simpler way. I don't own a tv or a microwave, I don't read newspapers, I resist shopping simply because something is on sale (which is hard because I do love clothes). But always I try to think: "What is most important here?" When I am in a pub with a friend, would I rather save a couple bucks by getting a PBR, or splurge and have a glass of Lindeman's and enjoy it and my friend's conversation that much more?
I have been valuing "the good, the true, and the beautiful" much more than I ever have before, and blogs like yours encourage me to keep at it. A hearty thanks!

[The Aesthetic Elevator]

"Why, instead of doing things, would we prefer to watch other people doing things?"

It's an interactive book. Only it's more addictive than a book.

AMEN AMEN AMEN to your commentary on our disposable culture. But as you read my blog from time to time, you already know this is my sentiment *wink*

[Matt]

Excellent Post Tim, very well said. You also bring up a valuable point regarding life-cycle cost analysis. So much that is considered extravagant is actually quite economical when you consider it is designed for hundreds of years instead of 5-10. Generational building is a dead virtue in our culture, we think only for ourselves. I think the average lifespan of a building in America today is 22 years. Pretty sad.

Keep up the good work and fight the worthy fight.