Another example of the technological fundamentalism of journalism is the steady flow of stories about new products that that are little more than free advertising for the gadgets that are central to our dead-end living arrangement. The reviews of this endless flood of products celebrating the culture’s child-like obsession with shiny things -- everything from hulking SUVs to tiny electronic devices -- are much the same; even when a specific product is criticized for its shortcomings, the assumption is that such products are part of a sensible life and consistent with a sustainable future. The idea that journalists might inquire into “our larger purposes and prospects” -- who really needs these things, and what are the costs to the planet of the manufacture and disposal of them -- would be seen by most journalists as inappropriate editorializing, while avoiding those questions is a sign of objectivity.
Journalists’ instinct to fall in line with the dominant assumptions of the culture is hardly surprising. In the contemporary United States, the good life is synonymous with consumption and the ability to acquire increasingly sophisticated technology. Those who challenge this dogma are routinely ignored or dismissed as naïve, such as in this story in Wired magazine:
Green-minded activists failed to move the broader public not because they were wrong about the problems, but because the solutions they offered were unappealing to most people. They called for tightening belts and curbing appetites, turning down the thermostat and living lower on the food chain. They rejected technology, business, and prosperity in favor of returning to a simpler way of life. No wonder the movement got so little traction. Asking people in the world’s wealthiest, most advanced societies to turn their backs on the very forces that drove such abundance is naïve at best. [8]
Naïve, perhaps, but not as naïve as the belief that unsustainable systems can be sustained indefinitely, which is at the heart of the technological fundamentalists’ delusional belief system. With that writer’s limited vision -- which is what passes for vision all around this culture -- it’s not surprising that he advocates economic and technological fundamentalist solutions:
With climate change hard upon us, a new green movement is taking shape, one that embraces environmentalism’s concerns but rejects its worn-out answers. Technology can be a font of endlessly creative solutions. Business can be a vehicle for change. Prosperity can help us build the kind of world we want. Scientific exploration, innovative design, and cultural evolution are the most powerful tools we have. Entrepreneurial zeal and market forces, guided by sustainable policies, can propel the world into a bright green future.
In other words: The “sophisticated” thinkers ask us to ignore our experience and throw the dice, to take naiveté to new heights, to forget all we should have learned. This is what Kunstler calls the “Jiminy Cricket syndrome,” after the character in “Pinocchio” who believes that when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true. “It’s a nice sentiment for children, perhaps, but not really suited to adults who have to live in a reality-based community, especially in difficult times,” says Kunstler. [9]
An alternative would be to question the technological fundamentalism and think about how we might reorder our world. If one central role of journalism is to raise the difficult questions that citizens should confront in a democratic society, journalists are not doing their jobs.
An honest assessment of the culture’s technological fundamentalism makes it clear why Wes Jackson’s call for an “ignorance-based worldview” is so important. Jackson, a plant geneticist who left conventional academic life to co-found The Land Institute to pursue projects about sustainable agriculture and sustainable culture, suggests that we would be wise to recognize what we don’t know. His point is that whatever the advanced state of our technical and scientific prowess, we are -- and always will be -- far more ignorant than knowledgeable, and therefore it would be sensible for us to adopt an ignorance-based worldview that could help us work effectively within our limits. Acknowledging our basic ignorance does not mean we should revel in the ways humans can act stupidly, but rather should spur us to recognize that we have an obligation to act intelligently on the basis not only of what we know but what we don’t know.
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