At the Altar of Techne
It was one of those chicken and egg situations: I needed to work on my son’s new website in Photoshop; Photoshop wouldn't work properly because the graphics card needed to be updated to a new driver; the new driver was designed to work in Windows 10 and nothing earlier; so, with a heavy heart, I agreed to download Windows 10.
Upgrading your computer system must be similar to childbirth – in both cases there is a psychological tendency to forget how painful it was the previous time, so you keep doing it. After three hours of watching out of the corner of my eye and seeing the icon still spinning around and the bar barely moving a centimeter, I went to bed. In the morning upon rebooting I discovered that Windows had "lost" all of my data, files, folders, photos, videos etc.
I didn't panic. Having been well trained by someone who's actually a computer geek and who had forced me to understand that there was nothing I could do - at the level in which I operate - that could actually destroy the hard drive. Therefore, the worst that could happen would be I would have to shut down and start up again. That simple lesson has been the foundation for any success I may claim in the digital world. (Thank you, Julia!) And so, I calmly started scouring the internet for information on how to retrieve my lost data. And, sure enough, there were multiple posts of other people who have had similar problems and by putting bits and pieces of this information together I was able to track down into my system and find a deeply buried folder where all of my stuff had simply been dumped.
In this respect computer upgrades are exactly like having your house done over by an interior decorator: Do you know why it always look so terrific on television when the designer shows off the new space? It's because 90% of your crap has simply been taken out of the house and put in boxes and shoved to the back of your garage! That's why the interiors looks so nice. In the same way these computer upgrades take all of your old stuff and simply dump it conveniently in some back corner. Then their splashy new homepage looks pristine and inviting.
But I don't just want to rant. No, I actually learned something incredibly important about myself today. While waiting for the download of the new driver update for my Nvidia GeForce 840 series Graphics processor card (!) I turned to my husband and asked, "Why is it that I can so patiently follow directions for all of this stuff that sounds like Greek, but I can't follow English directions for a baking recipe to save my life?" He studied me intently and then said slowly, "I think you'll have to search deep in your soul to an answer for that one.”
And that's when it hit me, and a deep blush began to spread over my face. “Oh my God,” I said. “It's because when I cook I am completely arrogant – I think I know what I'm doing. But in front of the great God Techne, I am completely humble, as if I knew nothing.”
And there it was – the naked truth. In a position of humility I can accomplish amazing things. As a simple folk singer and philosopher I can actually build websites and use fancy computer programs because I've learned to follow directions! In the kitchen, I can do anything on the stove top, but ask me to bake anything in the oven and - unless I have my husband standing over me reading the recipe and watching me like a hawk - it’s a disaster.
And so this is one of the curious ways in which the religious impulse follows us into the secular world: In front of the computer screen most of us are brought to our knees.
As the mythologist, Joseph Campbell, noted when he first attempted to use a computer:
“Computers are like Old Testament gods: lots of rules and no mercy!”
For those o you less familiar with your Greek mythology, let me point out that Techne comes with an impeccable historical pedigree. It was reported in The Life of Apollonius of Tyana by Philostratus (2nd century A.D.) that the city of Gadeira “whose inhabitants are excessively given to religion” have set up altars to Geras (Old Age), Penia (Poverty) and to Tekhne. She is referred to elsewhere as the goddess of tools, craft and skill and appears repeatedly in philosophical discussions about the nature of human thought.
While Techne as worshipped goddess has been all but lost to our understanding, Techne is still a powerful player in the ongoing debate in the tension between human as thinker and human as doer. From the classical arguments of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle to the modern critiques of Foucault, Heidegger and Toulmin, Techne still reigns as the goddess of craft and form, mother of apparatus, tool and technique. Tehcne is the patron of the clever, those who bring forth the forms of the mind, the manipulators of matter, the creators of machines, the draftsmen and craftsmen of the tribe.
It is this capacity to make from the unformed stuff of the world the objects of pleasure and power that gives Techne her quality of fascination and explains the strange hold she has upon the human imagination. This fascination – this inability to tear our eyes or ears or hands away from her gadgets – has been noted by other authors, including Langdon Winner of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute who dubbed it “technological euphoria” and blamed the epidemic of this disease on our “ritualized optimism – The American Dream and the power of positive thinking it is view of future prospects.” (from Technological Euphoria and Contemporary Citizenship)
He rightly points out that this fascination tethers our minds to the uncritical notion that more of the same must be an advance in civilization and leaves no room for sober conversations about the direction and destination of this rapid rush towards Techne’s altar.
