Can we go 'back to nature'? What exactly is a harmonic relationship with nature? Can we possible exist in our world without harming it in any way? Don't we need to destroy a part of nature to a degree in order to survive? Where is the line drawn between neccessity and surplus? Or is it something about our state of consciousness? Why do we neccessarily consider indigenous culture 'closer' to nature, and yet we have nature all around us just the same? The idea of being a part of everything kind of haunts us sometimes, i mean, it can be comforting, to know you are intertwined with a whole, but it also can challenge our notion of individuality by demphasizing our seperation from that whole. Closeness to nature, can really mean, closer to the whole, less space, less distraction between us, and the realization that 'us' is really one. Several things sparked me thinking about this, one being Nietzsche's "The Birth of Tragedy", which we are discussing in another one of my classes. Another being Martin Heidegger's "The Turning". The transformation of technology is also what i'm interested in, from 'techne' to 'technology' and what each of those terms mean for our consciousness and state in history. Or even for history itself. Simply, the Birth of Tragedy discusses as emphasis on the need of tragedy in our society again, a need to balance the play between the individual and the whole (Apollonian vs. Dionysian) and with that is a constant reaffirmation of life, tragedy is the realization of the illusion of the individual, but something we also cannot escape. In our society today, the Apollonian reigns, the overemphasis of the individual or the ego, and Nietzsche feels that we don't need a return to nature but a return to tragedy, a return to balance. This can be compared to notions of techne and technology. Techne, being an emhasis on the 'process of' producing, the act of, the quality of, the knowledge of producing. Technology, in the modern sense emphasizes a still, stable, product, not the process. Technology has turned into one dominating entity, one force, with the object being 'the product' and how that product overpowers nature.
This also seems to me, to parallel the way oral versus literate societies function. Techne, focusing on a process, oral, focusing on a experience of not result of. Technology, focusing on a product, literate, focusing on objectifying. You can connect this to Nietzsche's idea of the Apollonian dominating over society currently, the Apollonian symbolizing the city, structure, the individual, boundaries, laws, rules, is a symbol of modern technology in one sense. The Apolloninan is a drift from that connection, the process, the experience being that connection. Oral connects us, literate disconnects us. You can see that techne, changed into technology, it changed our relationship with nature as well. And with "The Turning", you can't take technology away, something i have grappled with in the past, when there is humanity there is technology. According to Heidegger, it 'enframes' us, it creates a boundary for us to see through, a window to create reality, it is simply "Being". But that enframing also always changes, like techne changes into technology, and then our reality within that emframing changes. Our relationship with nature changes. The Apollonian dominated. The individual dominates. SO does this then mean that techne is 'closer to nature'? In the Dionysian sense, yes, being that it symbolizes unity, freedom, nature, connection. So then do we all exist in seperate enframings? Because obviously, oral people relate to their world through different technology than the literate do. You can see that with writing itself. That writing enframes us, it creates a reality for us. So is writing a product of that imbalance that Nietzsche talks about? Does a return to tragedy require more than a "turning" of mind? Does it require a rewiring of our technology? How can we rewire it if it emframes us, makes us? Can we be synomous with technology to some degree?
An article i am reading, discusses this same dillema:
"[Heidegger] argues that because technology 'enframes' the planet and everything on it we become cut off from an awareness of tragedy: the originary strife, the enigma of suffering, the transience or 'movedness' of all nature including our own" (Tabachnick)
"It is not so much that technology eliminates tragedy but the fact is that we are unaware that tragedy is a defining characteristic of human existance even in the technological age" (Tabachnick)
"...Heidegger argues that, because it is connected to the tragic, a return to ancient techne might serve as a response to the enframing essence of technology" (Tabachnick)
A striking, omnipresent thought:
"Dudley Shapere, from a philosophy and history of technology perspective, tries to apply an evolution theory normally associated with biology to the development of technology and declares that technology is as old as humankind." (Tabachnick)
Tabachnick, David E. "Techne, Technology and Tragedy." Techne: Research in Philosophy and Technology. Spring 2004, Vol. 7, Number 3.
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