EducationSociety

Seeing through the seductions of science and technology

The history books in our schools tell us that scientific and technological advancement have freed us from boredom, ignorance and oppression; from drudgery and repetition; from dirt, disease and malnutrition.

Let’s briefly examine these assumptions about what “progress” has achieved, and consider where we go from here.

 

Freedom from boredom, ignorance, and oppression

To be free from boredom, ignorance and oppression, first we condemn our children to approximately two decades of mind-numbing “education” during what should be the free-est years of their lives. (Education, depending on how it’s conducted, can either be liberating or it can restrict children’s thinking and experimentation to such an extent that most of them forget how to think for themselvesi.)

“So long as our kids get the 3R’s and plenty of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) drummed into them,” we might think, “they won’t be disadvantaged.”

Next, we enshrine a screen in every home; even in every room of every home; even in the car! (Because, now that we have all this leisure time thanks to technology, we need something to fill it with.)

Numbed by popular media, programmed for consumption to support a never-ending-growth economy, we adults send our kids to good schools and exhort them to work hard and earn good grades so they’ll get good jobs, while we keep our own noses to the grindstone and our feet on the treadmill.

We’re sure that once the mortgage is paid off and the cars and screens are upgraded, THEN we can start having fun.

 

 

Freedom from drudgery and repetition

School prepares children for their working lives.

But when school comes with too many rules and regulations and not enough individual initiative; too much testing, grading, and not enough room for intrinsic motivation, the outcome is very often adults who will spend most of their lives attending to someone else’s drudgery.

Image by Wokandapix from Pixabay

School also prepares children to specialise in a particular career. Careers in science or technology are particularly desirable because they put people at the forefront of “progress.”

Careers in science and technology also tend to pay more than “common” pursuits like growing food, or “frivolous” pursuits like the arts.

Some specialists find their true vocation and engage in empowering, meaningful service that makes the world a better place for all of us.

But many specialists find themselves trapped in a career that becomes drudgery, feeling unable to make a change because they have to keep paying the mortgage.

 

 

Freedom from dirt and disease

To free ourselves from dirt and disease, we’ve severed our connections with nature. We’ve declared war on the ecosystems we need and love, and on the very microbiomes that our health depends upon.

In place of dirt and disease we have entire supermarket aisles devoted to perfumed, toxic cleaning products. Along with these new standards of cleanliness, we have superbugs and antibiotic resistance, degenerative and man-made diseases, immune disorders, environmental illnesses.

 

 

Freedom from malnutrition

When science and technology gave us industrialised agriculture, vast monocultures replaced diverse family farms and community-scale food productionii.

A few high-yielding, heavily input-dependent varieties of crops replaced hundreds or thousands of locally adapted, pest-resistant food-producing species. Animals suited to factory farming crowded out dozens or hundreds of heritage breeds. Priceless inter-generational food knowledge was all but lost in a single generation.

Photo by Dương Nhân from Pexels

Millionsiii of unique, circular, ecologically-stable, place-based food production systems disappeared.

They were replaced by one precarious, standardised, linear global food industry.

In place of malnutritioniv we now have obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, allergies, food intolerances, behaviour problems, and monstrous food wastage in the developed world, while “undeveloped” peoples who can no longer practice their traditional food production suffer shocking rates of starvation and undernourishment.

 

 

What happened to our sense of purpose and autonomy?

The assumption we made about development and modernisation was that we would be freed from difficulty and discomfort; inconveniences would disappear and life would be easy. In a sense, we were right – at least for the privileged among us.

But it turns out that we need difficulty and discomfort. We need nature – all aspects of nature (not to pit ourselves against, but to ally with). We need each other (social media is not the same as social cohesion).

And, paradoxically, we need to need all these things. Without need and the drive to meet it, there is no growth, no meaning, no purpose.

Photo by Baihaki Hine on Unsplash

Turns out that using our own hands and our own initiative to meet challenges, to work with nature and each other to feed, care for, and entertain ourselves, are essential to a sense of personal power and autonomy. Such work builds our capacity to be in service to something larger than ourselves. Something really worthwhile.

Without that something really worthwhile, life itself becomes drudgery.

Which is why, besides the degenerative diseases that accompany modern lifestyles and the immune disorders that deliverance from dirt has given us, despair, depression, isolation and mental illnesses also stalk us in this modernised age of loneliness.

 

 

Stepping in the right direction

I’m not proposing that we throw away our laptops and go back to cooking over an open fire (except sometimes, just for fun).

But we are, individually and collectively, re-considering the roles of technology and science in our lives, re-building our capacity to do for ourselves, and making more conscious, self-directed choices.

Those are steps in the right direction.

 

 

Byline

Kate writes at ARealGreenLife.com about outgrowing consumerism and living a more natural, connected, sustainable life. Check out her Free Downloads or her latest posts.

 

Endnotes

i I think education is crucial, especially for disadvantaged girls and women. What I’m opposed to is the mind-numbing, initiative-destroying effects of rigid, compulsory curriculums, excessive testing and grading, and extrinsic motivation via rewards and punishment.

iii I don’t know how many family or community sized, place-based food production systems were lost or damaged in the industrialization of agriculture. But the report Who Will Feed Us? estimates that up to 5.5 billion people, or around 70% of the world population, still rely on what it calls the “Peasant Food Web” – small, place-based food production systems.

iv Malnutrition is itself a product of industrialization; indigenous peoples worldwide enjoyed good health until modern manufactured foods replaced their traditional diets.

Kate Martignier

Kate writes at ARealGreenLife.com – an exploration into thinking differently and living a more natural, connected, and sustainable life.

7 Comments

  1. After 25 years as an educator (10 in the classroom, 15 as a K-8 school administrator) it wasn’t until the last few years of my career (and after being reintroduced–I studied biology/physiology and archaeology in university before education–to some important concepts regarding exponential growth, overshoot, and societal collapse) that I took a critical look at what our education system was ‘teaching’. I came to a better appreciation of how it seemed to be more about compliance and, as you argue, ‘training’ our children to be workers in support of those at the top of society’s power structures (not surprising given the government’s control of the public system I was part of), and consisted of a curriculum that was focused on this in terms of ‘science, mathematics, and technology’. We have completely removed any reinforcement or exposure of the skills and knowledge necessary to be self-reliant and resilient as a result. We have created a society almost totally dependent upon complex, fragile systems over which we have little control or understanding. While many educators argue they focus on the critical thinking skills necessary to address the various dilemmas that humanity faces, they do this within a paradigm that continues to perpetuate the complex technologies and systems that have led to the existential threats we face. I retired from the profession quite concerned that while the education system had great potential for helping humanity confront the problems of the future, it had actually become a large part of the problem primarily because it had been co-opted by powerful interests that were more focused on supporting their particular view of society that was, in the end, about sustaining their positions atop the power structures, and a belief in the possibility of chasing infinite growth on a finite planet.

    1. Thank you for your comment, Steve.

      We home-educate our children for these and other reasons. The writers whose work most inspires and encourages me, as well as many parents of other homeschooling families we know who set examples I strive to emulate, all come from backgrounds in education.

      I feel most hopeful about education when I hear from someone like you who comprehends the inner workings of the system, the influences on it, the outcomes of it, and its potential. We (collectively) and I (as an individual home-educating parent) need to hear voices like yours.

  2. Science is a framework for acquiring knowledge: Observe, hypothesize, test, draw conclusions. The very folk knowledge whose loss you mourn could be called scientific, as most of it was based on this very process. Please don’t villainize scientific knowing, which is merely a method of reasoning, because its powers have been harnessed by an overculture poisoned by greedy capitalism and patriarchy. Science—reason—is not the enemy. Ignorance, greed, and arrogance are. Speaking as both a feminist permaculturalist and a medical scientist: We would not be able to prevent mass deaths from COVID, just for instance, without vaccines created using arduous, pain-staking, decades-long scientific methods and reasoning. Villainizing science because it has been used in some cases by bad actors is like saying all language is evil because people use language to wage war. Some of your most passionate nature lovers are scientists, and we study nature’s secrets with reverence and humility. Please don’t villainize us because we are also scientists.

    1. Hi Richard, thank you so much for adding your voice. I agree with what you said about the scientific method of reasoning, and it wasn’t my intention to villainize science for exactly the reasons you gave. Your comment makes it obvious that I wasn’t clear enough.

      My intention was to suggest that we reconsider the roles of technology and science in our lives, be realistic about what they can and cannot do for us, and re-build our capacity for self-reliance and inter-connection.

      Further to your comment, I respectfully disagree that ignorance, greed, and arrogance are the enemy because I don’t think that there is an enemy.

      Remaining convinced that there is one leads us to look for someone or something to blame – and then we find “ignorance, greed, etc,” right where we expect to find them – in the “enemy,” which ultimately dis-empowers us: (“Its all the fault of those greedy people and there’s nothing I can do about it”) instead of being empowered to step and take responsibility (“What can I do, MYSELF, to live in a more peaceful way and bring a little more peace to Earth?”)

      If you have time (its a really long read and will take some commitment to get through) see this series of 5 articles for a super read on why identifying the enemy, the “other,” is counter productive (and it will also get the wheels turning on the topic of vaccination):

      https://charleseisenstein.org/essays/girard-series-part-1-the-death-of-the-festival/
      https://charleseisenstein.org/essays/girard-series-part-2-fascism-and-the-antifestival/
      https://charleseisenstein.substack.com/p/mob-morality-and-the-unvaxxed
      https://charleseisenstein.substack.com/p/the-sacrificial-king
      https://charleseisenstein.substack.com/p/a-temple-of-this-earth?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo0NDY2MDIxMywicG9zdF9pZCI6NDE1ODM5MDcsIl8iOiJycGtHYiIsImlhdCI6MTYzMjY5NjIyMCwiZXhwIjoxNjMyNjk5ODIwLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItNDI3NDU1Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.UXhdxmPbHlmzyk1eFEo3U64nACcZOHJMAiVsgtsEyGA

      thanks again for your thoughtful comment.

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