Technology and the Howl of Existentialism - Intercollegiate Studies Institute

Technology and the Howl of Existentialism

Last fall, comedian Louis C.K. made an appearance on Conan O’Brien, where he gave a surprisingly profound insight into the relationship between man’s being with technology.  While the audience found his analysis hilarious, I think that Louis touched on the nature of nothingness, emptiness, and despair that’s found in life and its relationship to technology.

Following years in the Gulag, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn makes the point that we’ve forgotten our purpose as human beings.  The modern understanding of being is simply reduced to interests, but the question must be asked, “how did we arrive here?”  Once the waves of modernity washed over the previous understanding of being, it freed man of having a fixed understanding of himself.  Before modernity, man had a clearer understanding of his place in this world that was rooted in religion, family, and community.  But this liberation from a fixed ontological state allows man to “progress” to where he wants.  Man can now recreate himself in whatever image he likes (Facebook, technology, biotechnology).  Since we are beings with interests, why should we neglect those interests?  We should be mindful of those passions because technology brings us to the place of material security at the expense of spiritual insecurity.

This brings us back to Louis’s claim of nothingness.  Nietzsche describes man’s will and nothingness this way; “Much to man — lies expressed the fundamental feature of man’s will, his horror vacui: he needs a goal — and he will sooner will nothingness than not will at all.”  While Nietzsche is on to something, can it be that man is content to willing nothingness?

As beings of interests, we use words only in the context of pursuing our private goals.  This use of language devalues our ability to communicate our loneliness to one another and the ability to live a good life in the face of death.  Solzhenitsyn would argue that man is left to “howling, the desperate expression of profound spiritual insecurity.”  We howl because we do not know how to communicate the nothingness and loneliness that we experience.  Instead of reflecting on our humanity, as Louis C.K. tell us, we text on our phones in the face of our loneliness or post pictures on Instagram in search for assurance.  Jacob Stubbs, contributor to Fare Forward, covers this with his analysis of the satirical Twitter account, “Kim Kierkegaardashian.”

In the end, I think the best response to technology is the awareness of our humanity.  Here lies the challenge of recapturing the search for truth, wisdom, and virtue.  We must realize our place in society as biological and spiritual beings who understand modern progress via technology that has not been spiritually satisfying.

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