The technique as a problem

(A spherical examination)

It is not long ago since we read:

“It is beyond doubt, that there is a climate or restlessness. All the people are worried. Things are not going too well”.

Also there are people, who worry, speculate and wonder and lay down their worry.

But

“What does the crisis consist in? In the collapse of meaning, in the collapse of the bound. The hemming in the present destroys the character of the human being; his life is rendered goal without meaning, an insane fact. The meaning (of the world, the human being, the facts) is annihilated. In the philosopher’s question: “why does something exist and not nothing”?, the present human being has to answer: “either something or nothing exists, it is deprived of meaning”. It follows that the present human being is sunk in the spirit’s death. The hemming in the present is a sinking in annihilation” (Epoptia, v.80).

Are the results of this crisis noted? Are there any effects?

Let us follow the evolution of thought of one of our movers:

a. the directions of Education are becoming less

Christian

b. the directions of Education are becoming less

Christian

c. the holy institution of family is shaking

d. confusion is being cultivated in the area of literature

e. literature has an antichristian aberration.

So what is to blame?

In order to answer the question, we have to face the

whole issue sociologically. We will see that, in all these the development of technique takes a most important position. This technique creates a special environment, in which the human being is forced to live. A new environment, which has replaced the old one, that is the nature’s environment.

This new technical environment has these characteristics:

a. it is artificial

b. it is autonomous in relation to the values, the ideas

and the state

c. it entrenches itself in a closed circle

d. it is formulated by an accumulation of means, which has taken the priority from the targets

e. all these parts are interlacing to such an extent, that it is impossible to dissociate them or to examine any technical problem by itself.

After all these the question is posed:

a. is the human being capable of remaining a master in a world of means?

b. can a new civilisation appear, which would include the technique, too?

Of course there is a retort, which a priori seems right.

There are other people, who are masters of these situations. The students, the interrogators, those who watch all these and exploit them appropriately. But those too who in their turn submit to the action of other techniques (of propaganda, for example). It proves that, those “Masters are in everything, and even though it seems strange to us, they have reduced the technique to a value. Of course a lot of retorts can exist. But their existence proves that we are constantly moving in a vicious circle.

In order to answer the second question, we should have to answer the other question:

How can the human being put the technical development under his control?

And again in order to answer this, the answer of the other must precede.

Which people are in a position to do something like this?

Who are in a position to choose the values, which can justify the existence and the course of the technique and to exercise control on it?

Where are we to find the absolute arbiter? Because, of course, they cannot be many.

Are they among the philosophers?

Can the technician himself subjugate the technique? But a technician means a human being specialisation.

Maybe can we expect anything from the scientist?

Maybe the politician?

Maybe none of us? And if yes, in what way? And will we accept to overlook all those goods, which the technological development brings along?

It is clear we have to point out a reality here. The technique liberates the human being from the limits, which place and time imposed on him. It liberates him from the hunger, the cold, the heat, the night’s darkness, and the restraint of the knowledge etc. but does it make him really free? Did it impose other limits and confinements?

Let us not forget that freedom is the herald of initiative and autonomy. But do these two means exist in the world of continuous increasing requirements we live in?

And if there is no freedom, is there a possibility for civilasation to exist?

Maybe the solution is to go back to the pro-technical society.

Can we cross out everything and go… back just like that? That is to ignore all that we know today?

Maybe would it be better to find our place in the reality of today?

The turn to various systems (Marxist, socialist) creates only utopias.

The problems will vanish when

a. the human being stops worshiping the “creation” (that is the technique)

b. he leads the technique to God and His service.

The fact that today we live in an uncertainty, is no need to be said. And that along with it there is an “unlimited liberty” is very clear. The contemporary man facing the questions “Power for what? For what reason”? Gives his own off handed answers. By analizing them we find out fascinating facts.

Α. Τhe values are becoming less holy, that is

a. a change of the idea of nature. Nature ceased to be a creation “by the hands of God”. The human being has be the servant of the machine.

The world from being holy made is faced as being humanly made.

b. a disappearance of holy place.

The human being is disconnected from the Church. The contemporary towns are built based on this relation: theatre-bank-mansion.

c. a separation between the liturgical and social time. The holy ceremonies do no longer have a place in the programme of the contemporary man. Holidays have been changed.

d. The human body is becoming less holy. The family, social and public life are organised independently of the church.

B. Religious fading.

From time to time human beings participate in various religious ceremonies, but without factual extension of all that they listen and see in the church.

A basic reason is the fact that we became mundane. How is this fading shown?

a. with the impoverishment of loss of God’s sense.

b. with the non-understanding of the traditional symbolism

c. with the dispute of the traditional conceptions

d. with the introduction of Geocentrism or Worldly affairs and the (badly understood) pragmatism (realism).

Results of all these now

a. a decrease of the number of people who go to church

b. a small participation in the Sacraments

c. a prevalence of comparative views and superstitions.

Something must be done, of course, after all these.

Definitely, there is no space for haste. Neither is the

cultivation of the impression that “by characterizing a subject as an issue of morality, it becomes simple and … can be directly solved”.

A series of actions is needed like:

a. correct diagnosis combined with an awareness of the

problem.

b. a merciless destruction of the “myth” of the technique, that is all the ideological structure and the tendency for technology to be considered something holy. We know, that always the human being “dresses” (unconsciously) anything that he is unable to discipline with the holy glamour. So the technique needs to be considered less holy and less ideological.

c. The human being must learn to stand from a far, when

he uses the technique, so that he is not dazzled by it and to preserve his independence. He is asked to desert his delusions. To cease claiming that he completely free, because virtually he is enslaved to it.

d. To search his moral perfection all the time. This is his aim in life.

e. To be exempted from the tendency, that, whatever he

does, is always (despotically) true.

f. Let us not forget the other thing. Every technical

progress has its price. Every happiness brings its own (quantitative) commitment and submission to it.

But these, of course, are valid only generally. But can it be done particularly? There are opportunities, ways, means. So what are we going to do?

a. A correct exploitation of the logic, which the

technique brings. A demystification of Christianity, that is the exaltation of reality, that Christianity has nothing to do with a myth.

b. A correct exploitation of the human being’s free

time. An acknowledgement of the need for holidays and the meeting of the Christian in the place of his holidays. In order the church to converse, to question, to talk with him there.

c. A search of the sections and ways for a correct

pastoral action in town and in the bounds of the parish.

d. A correct exploitation of solidarity, sociability, the

prevalence of education, the exaltation of the human rights.

e. A correct exploitation of the possibility of developing a personal and conscious religiousness.

Let us personally fight, so that this downfall stops.

Before it’s too late.

+Fr.G.

SECULARISATION

The word secularisation is used many times with different meaning. It would be good to look at some of these meanings and to examine the whole subject closely.

Initially the clear distinction of the world from God can be considered as secularisation.

Another similar distinction is found in the Gospel. So we distinguish “those of the God” from “those of the Caesar”.

A second form of secularisation is the one that is created with the insertion of mundane elements in the religious life, which differentiate its initial character. We note such a form of secularisation to take place in the bounds of Christianity, even after the prevalence of Christianity as the official religion of the state. The consequences of this secularisation were: the easing off of the opposition between the Church and the world, the compromise of the Christians with the specific social reality, the adjustment of the ecclesiastical authority etc. That is since that era the motivation for the coming of people to Christianity was not only their zeal, but many other selfish aims.

When the mundane elements do not have moral and practical, but theoretical and gnoseological content, a new form of secularisation is created, which usually leads to the absolute denial of the religion. This tendency is noted after the Renaissance, when the beginning of the technocratic civilasation of our era refers to. The desire of the human being to succeed in the social world is pursuited either with the technique or with science.

The transition from rural to industrial life had consequences on religious life, too. The industrial life takes the position of the rural. The patriarchal family (with its self-sufficiency) gives its position to the “nuclear” family, which totally depends on its social environment. The hierarchy of its members retreats and the freedom and duty of each member is stressed. Life is divided into public and private (where religiousness falls). The source of state authority is not God, but the people.

The development of science and technique, as it is expected, developed new forms of life and affected the religious perceptions of people seriously. So life and nature were desacralized.

So today our society is presented with a lot of truths, which preserves and offers with its various sub-systems, without at the same time causing the interest for the search of the ontological truth. So it becomes clear that the religious truth basically remains beyond the interest of the contemporary person.

After all these it is noticed that another form of secularization appeared, which is expressed with the departure of people from Church. This opinion is completed by the various statistics, which talk about percentages of Church-goers, the frequency of attendance to the Holy Eucharist etc. But it must be noted that the departure from the ecclesiastical life is not always explained as a reduction or a disappearance of religiousness. This is because it is identified that religiousness can exist and be cultivated even independently of Church or the Church institutions. Also this opinion was formulated that the religious crisis is deceptive. This basically depends on the angle of which

someone might see the issue. Of course it must not escape our attention this other reality: If indeed there is a religious crisis, that means that there is religious life. This is because a religious crisis can only exist where religion is alive (…grace over exceeded …).

This must be added here, that the Eastern Christian tradition always manages to find the balance in the preservation of discretion and the relationship of god and the world.

This is the reason why the crisis of secularization was milder in this region and was presented as a phenomenon of external influence.

The problem gets harder in the sphere of influence of Papism, whereas Protestantism, with the identification of the absolute unworthiness of the human being before God and the salvation of the human being as the only miracle, stripped the Christian life of its transcendental element, preparing thus way the absolute secularisation. That is why crisis of the Western Christian tradition from the contemporary secularisation was deep and the wound was fatal.

The secularisation of our times is not just “an establishment of this century” (Romans 12:2) as Paul says. It is not just a retreat to temptation, which causes “the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the arrogance of life” (I Johnn 2:16). It is a complete transposition and a change of basis. It is the overturning of the theocratic perception of the world and the people and the establishment of an intolerable restricted prevalence of the mundane as a worldly dimension and as a foundation of life.

A special expression of secularisation is the desacralisation, that is the obliteration of every trace of mystery from the world and the pursuits of the human being. The dynamic presence of God, the incarnated economy etc. are desacralized. They are ignored.

The Sinai, Galilee, Thavor, The Calvary, the Life-giving Sepulchre and the frightful Credit bank of Church repulse, do not touch and are cancelled.

A second aspect of secularisation (which is the extension of the previous one) is the complete encircle of the contemporary man in the mundane forms. The pursuits are material. A bondless pursuit of prosperity is noted. A fading of Theology is notice. The Pastoral is changed into a science or the mastery of public relations.

The worldliness of the people today is so much that anyone wonders: “What about Whitsun”? Why the Whitsun did not happen? It is as if the Holy Spirit did not open the perspectives of the ultimate days.

The solution is found in faith.

The solution is found in the return to Whitsun. Papini somewhere advises us: “Drench again the light of Pentecost”. Only then this problem will stop rending our times.

Let us drench again in the light of Pentecost.

+Fr.G.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-23