Michelle Newcomb, Unassigned Readings #2

Michelle Newcomb

Religious Studies – Primal Religions

Unassigned Readings #2

Adding Machine and Jurassic Park

Does technology really help mankind? Have we really made progress – not just American progress (making things faster and more efficiently) but has man really progressed because of technology?

I’m a huge Michael Crichton fan and I read all his books (they’re just good books but they also end with really interesting perceptions on the lives of humans and how science has effected us negatively). I attended The Adding Machine at CNU last weekend and when I was reading the synopsis and in it there was a quote that really struck me “Is technology helping or hurting? Is our quality of life better or worse?” The place goes on to make the point that technology does not make our lives any easier or any better – in fact, it either turns us into machines or it replaces us with them.

In Jurassic Park, one of the main characters is anti-science and says something really interesting that’s in the same vein as The Adding Machine “The number of hours devoted to housework has not changed since 1930, despite all the advances. All he vacuum cleaners, washers-dryers, trash compactors etc… why does it still take as long to clean the house as it did in 1930? Because there haven’t been any advances. Not really. Thirty thousand years ago, when men were doing cave paintings they worked twenty hours a week… the rest of the time they could play, sleep, or do whatever they wanted. We’ve have fourth hundred years of modern science, and we ought to know by now what its good for and its not good for – its time for a change.”

I think, despite the stark differences between the play and the book/film – both authors make the same point that science has brought us nothing so far. The worst part is – almost everyone believes that its done some good, that our lives are improved. When you really stop to think though – what has it done? Its offered a vast amount of knowledge (most of which the normal American cannot understand or is not interesting in), its saved some lives (but at what cost? More humans live, but look at the ecological damage its caused for the sake of research), but what else? We (and not just Americans, but all humans) work harder than before – especially women. It took 30 hours a week to clean a house, not to mention raising the children, and they still do that today but work full time, serious careers just in order to make ends meet.

I don’t think this question is answered easily or quickly, its just something to think about.