Kierkegaard and the Question Concerning Technology

Christopher B. Barnett

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781628926682
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Existentialism in Philosophy

Over the last several decades, technology has emerged as an important area of interest for both philosophers and theologians. Yet, despite his status as one of modernity's seminal thinkers, Søren Kierkegaard is not often seen as one who contributed to the field. Kierkegaard and the Question Concerning Technology argues otherwise. Christopher B. Barnett shows that many of Kierkegaard's criticisms of "the present age" relate to the increasing dominance of technology in the West, and he puts Kierkegaard's thought in conversation with subsequent thinkers who grappled with technological issues, from Martin Heidegger to Thomas Merton. Barnett shows that Kierkegaard's writing, with its marked emphases on personal "upbuilding, " stands as a place where deeper, non-technical modes of thinking are both commended and nurtured. In doing so, Barnett presents a Kierkegaard who remains relevant--perhaps all too relevant--in today's digital age.

1

A General History of Technology

In the year 1811—just two years before the birth of Søren Kierkegaard—the population of Denmark was one million.¹ In contrast, the population of England and Wales in 1801 was over nine million² and that of France nearing thirty million.³ Each of those nations would experience remarkable population growth over the course of the nineteenth century, but the Denmark into which Søren Kierkegaard was born was still very much an agricultural nation: “75–85 per cent of this population was rural, with roughly 70 per cent directly engaged in agriculture.”⁴ The country’s lone metropolis was also its capital, Copenhagen, whose 100,000 residents⁵ represented but a tenth of London’s populace.⁶

On the surface, then, it might seem as if the rise of technology in nineteenth-century Denmark is an inconsequential topic. One might suppose that, to whatever extent there was technological development during that time period, it was a mere byproduct of progress elsewhere in Europe and, furthermore, a negligible force in a country of farmers and fishermen. At the same time, however, one might start with similar premises and reach a different conclusion—namely, that the arrival of modern technology in Denmark was momentous, precisely because it largely came from the outside and therefore unsettled a nation whose social order had changed little since the Middle Ages. Indeed, as will be argued, the latter is much closer to the case. During the first half of the nineteenth century, Denmark was rocked by a series of economic, military, political, and technological changes, so much so that, by the time Kierkegaard died in 1855, it was a far different country than the one he knew as a child. The task of this chapter is to outline these developments, paying special attention to technology. Not only will this topic cast light on the broader context of Kierkegaard’s authorship, but it will indicate that Kierkegaard’s engagement with the key social questions of his day was inseparable from the question concerning technology.

The task of this chapter is to sketch a general history of technology and, in turn, to clarify a point that many already intuit—that the evolution of world history is bound up with the evolution of technology. “The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist,”⁷ as Karl Marx famously put it. One need not subscribe to such a reductive view to see that it contains merit. Of particular concern here will be the rise of what is now often referred to as “information technology,” which, following Johannes Gutenberg’s implementation of movable type printing in 1439, played a decisive factor in Europe’s slow but inexorable turn to a “knowledge economy,” that is to say, a society centered on “the systematic supply of knowledge and systematic training in applying it,” so that information, rather than material goods, becomes “the central ‘factor of production’ in an advanced, developed economy.”⁸ It is critical to survey this development, since, as will be seen, Kierkegaard was principally concerned with information technology or, as he preferred, “the press” (Pressen).

Modernity and the ascent of technology

To confront the origins and development of technology is to confront a story of daunting proportions. After all, as John Dyer has commented, the first “technology upgrade”⁹ goes back to the very beginning of human civilization—in his example, to God’s clothing of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:21). This suggestion draws on the Bible, but archaeologists agree that the evolution of the genus Homo goes hand in hand with that of technology: roughly one million years ago, Homo erectus began to develop “sophisticated stone tool technology”¹⁰ in advance of the arrival of Homo sapiens, the only extant human species. The archaeological record is based as much on the development of instruments for industry and cooking as it is on biological markers such as cranial capacity.

And yet, even if one moves beyond the abysses of prehistory, there is a surfeit of complications. Questions about the cultural development and expression of various technologies abound. For example, printing, gunpowder, and the compass all have Chinese origins but, at least initially, failed to transform China as they did Western culture.¹¹ Likewise, a “wave of technology emanating from China and India rolled across the Islamic world of the eighth and ninth centuries ad,”¹² but these innovations were often put in service to Muslim piety. For example, “Indian astronomical tables” were used for ‘ilm al-miqat—a manner of time-keeping by which a muezzin was able “to determine the five daily canonical hours of prayer.”¹³ Such nuances underscore the fact that there is no simple “history of technology” and, likewise, no universal or culturally neutral way of speaking about “technological progress.” What is seen as an advance in one culture may be received as a retrogression in another—a point borne out by ongoing tensions between the Orient and the Occident on the nature and significance of technological development.

Consequently, this survey of the rise of technology will restrict itself to Western culture, with particular attention on the centuries postdating Gutenberg’s printing press. This is not to imply that Western technology can be neatly detached from extra-Occidental contexts. And yet, at the same time, a number of characteristics have come to distinguish technology in the West. Keld Nielson summarizes them as follows:

The ability to extract mechanical energy from fossil fuel through inventions like the steam engine and the internal combustion engine: mass production through the integration of the extraction of raw materials with transport systems, production facilities and sophisticated systems of distribution of wares to masses of consumers; the widespread use of technological standards and unified measuring systems; a permanent increase in mechanical precision in tool-making and manufacture; an intimate and active relation to capital and investments; the use of scientific knowledge in the development of products and production methods; and the high priority given to renewal through investments in research and development.¹⁴

Such features have become so ubiquitous in the West as to seem banal. Right now, as I write this, I am looking out of my office window. Bare maple and birch trees extend over rooftops bearing the last remnants of a recent snowfall; beyond them lies the low, pallid cloud cover of a February morning, which, here and there, reveals patches of pale azure. There are a few animals around as well: a black squirrel (a common species in the northeastern United States) perches on a branch nearby, and a skein of geese fly north and quickly leave my field of vision. This could be an almost timeless scene, but, at second glance, the world described by Nielson above is unmistakable. The squirrel exchanges his branch for a series of wires, which run on a grid throughout the neighborhood. These wires, of course, provide a variety of telecommunication services (electricity, telephone, cable, internet, etc.), and they have been put there by multibillion-dollar corporations such as PECO and Verizon. Moreover, every house that I can see accommodates one or two motorized vehicles—themselves constructed and sold by multibillion-dollar companies—in an adjacent driveway. Farther in the distance, just out of view, runs a two-lane thoroughfare that facilitates a steady flow of traffic, the vast majority of which is powered by large, fuel-burning machines, including commercial trucks carrying sundry goods and even bigger vehicles (buses, in particular) moving people from destination to destination. And, finally, an airplane passes overhead and vanishes into the western horizon. It is an enormous piece of equipment, holding perhaps 200 persons and their belongings, and yet its internal combustion engine is capable of bringing it to a speed of almost 600 miles per hour. Hence, if the flight I’m watching is bound for Chicago, it will make the nearly 700 mile trip from Philadelphia in around 90 minutes—an almost impossibly efficient journey, for which the airplane’s owner (another multibillion-dollar corporation) charges hundreds of dollars per ticket—indeed, through an advanced telecommunications system such as a computer website!

A scene such as this one can be observed from most windows in the Western world, and it serves as a précis of the current state of technology in the West. As late as the fourteenth century, Europe was still a predominantly agricultural civilization, whose technological innovation either came from the outside or differed from other cultures “in quantity rather than in essence.”¹⁵ Since that time, however, Europe and its Western progeny (North America and Australia, above all) have been transformed into highly mechanized, essentially urban societies, whose fundamental preoccupation lies with the systematic gathering and distribution of goods and services for the sake of monetary profit. The factors leading to this change are profuse, but, broadly speaking, two developments demand particular emphasis: (i) the proliferation of cities oriented toward exchange and (ii) technological innovations stemming therefrom.

The growth of Western urbanization

The great Belgian historian Henri Pirenne famously argued that Europe’s development as a distinct continent, led by a number of autonomous (or relatively autonomous) northern cities, can be traced back to the ninth century.¹⁶ The rise of Islam in the East and the threat of Muslim invasion not only legitimized the prevailing Frankish Empire but encouraged it to turn away from the Mediterranean Basin—long the cradle of European civilization—to the “forces of the north.”¹⁷ Later in the century, this shift in the balance of power would be reinforced, when the Carolingian Empire was “parcelled out” to “local dynasties”—a move that stabilized Europe and “was, on the whole, beneficial for society.”¹⁸ It was at this time that, according to the so-called “Pirenne Thesis,” a class of persons dedicated to facilitating commerce between northern Europe’s various administrative outposts arose. Eventually these “merchants”—a term derived from the Latin mercari (“to trade”)—would grow in stature, transcend the limitations of feudal culture, and orient Europe toward an economic system based on the flow of goods, information, and services.

Whether or not one adopts Pirenne’s theory in toto, it is nevertheless clear that urbanization—and, with it, an economy “catering to trade and handicraft production”¹⁹ —played a key role in technological development. For example, the clustering of tradespersons in Europe’s cities meant that various groups, from guilds of master craftsmen to less cohesive bands of apprentices and laborers, were able to focus on the manufacture and exchange of commercial goods. In turn, “new modes of production involving many steps and division of labor were perfected,”²⁰ and with increased productivity came increased profits. Thus, “banking systems emerged, making it easier to direct the flow of money toward trade, building and production, and the rising trading companies started to use double-entry bookkeeping.”²¹

The success of Europe’s burgeoning urban culture, as well as the upsurge of its attendant trading conglomerates, resulted in the establishment of cities abroad. Starting with the Portuguese and the Spanish, European merchants sought to expand their opportunities for trade and, with it, for wealth. Explorers were commissioned not only to espy new territories but also to extricate “commodities and raw materials from around the world.”²² This was the beginning of colonialism, and it resulted in a cycle of technological development: urbanization entailed trade and the technological means by which to trade (goods, transport, etc.); the more these conduits were acquired, the more productivity grew and, along with it, the inevitability of exploration and colonization; yet, in order to facilitate this expansion, more technology was needed, thereby spurring further innovation and urbanization. It is for this reason that Sam Bass Warner, Jr., could argue, albeit with a degree of humor, that “urban history might serve as the focus of an entire liberal arts curriculum,”²³ since the disciplin es that are so often identified with Western civilization—namely, the arts and the sciences—should be understood “with explicit reference to the urban dimension where they each intersected.”²⁴ Richard Rodger takes ...