Self-realisation in Technological Civilisation

Asifuzzaman :

August 31, 2012. Ghat No. 5 of the River Shitalakshya, Narayanganj. In the evening, the moonlight reflecting on the water, spreading the ancient passion leading me to think of the coast of the Aegean Sea. Thousands of people flock to the festival. That day was the Blue Moon: Nil Jochnai Abgahan, a cosmic festival.

An episode of the Discussion Project’s Nadir Bake Bake programme. Dedicated to Neil Armstrong, the First moon- walker who just passed away said upon landing on the moon,” That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

And I saw that five-year-old child who had set out from the Oma River in ancient Kenya is now a teenager on a two-million-year journey, representing the child as the human race, who has reached a Technological Adolescence.

On one side of Shitalakshya River ghat, a multimedia projector was showing a documentary about the arrival on Moon.

Next to it, singing and poetry recitation, and science discussion programme were taking place.

Even though the organizers had promised to show the Moon to the children, teenagers, men, and women, they were actually trying to show the sky through the telescope; sky after the sky, space in its cosmic expanse.

Sometimes the visitors, especially some children, stared as if they are inside cut off.

Even in this moonlit night, strange thoughts surrounded me.

Even on this moonlit night, strange thoughts surrounded me. I wanted to know what the children were actually watching. What were Organiser really trying to show them, and how was it being reflected in their childhood minds?”

I would like to know what the child is actually trying to express? Today’s children are the human of the future, so how will their actions shape that future? Is that what they are thinking? How far- reaching is their vision? Are they trying to perceive or contemplate something?

Are they worried about the uncertain future, or are they searching for the the perceptible clear future? Will the world ever escape the domain of kings, great monarchs, leaders, high-ranking officials, and the lust for power?

Will humanity move forward by surpassing everyone, or will it become one with all to unravel the expanding universe, progressing toward a unified existence of point and periphery (or: a unified existence that merges the individual and the collective)?

Did the child know that this world was on the verge of a terrible pandemic? Now he is a teenager. He was meant to face a phase of development, biological adolescence, where children physically experience new changes and their organs develop.

In such a state, there is a possibility that the teenager could make a fatal mistake or cause a disaster without proper guidance or maturity, although with anything new there is some possibility of this.

Look at the child’s eyes; what intense anxiety! I Once, read a report, the main point of which was the suggestion of an impending disaster or war in the crying of a child.

Even before the start of the century, Martin Rees in his book Our Final Century, and David Quammen in his book Spillover (Animal Infections and the Next Pandemic, 2012), both discussed the possibility of this coming pandemic-they mentioned it with careful calculation. Surely, many others have also said the same.

Despite all this, human civilization took no preparation for it. No development framework-whether in the developed or the under-developed world-reflects any such readiness.”

Truly, this world today is on the way to a terrible pandemic. This child is now a teenager, facing two dangers. One seems to be accelerating the other. Yet, he was only supposed to face one: biological adolescence.

The second is: Technological Adolescence. The introduction of smart devices or advanced technological facilities into the hands of people long before a society, state, civilization, or culture is prepared, and if this is validated in the education of teenagers, it might pose more serious dangers than we can imagine.

Many thinkers lamented this fear throughout the last century. Jagdish Chandra Bose and Rabindranath Tagore spoke of being close to nature at the beginning of the twentieth century, but since man is nature itself, what exactly does ‘closeness to nature’ mean?

“I think they talked about ecological balance; Of course, an ancient question can be raised here: The Greek Sophist Protagoras said that if an antithesis exists between nature and man, then what is the position of man in the natural world?

“Einstein observed the 1939 World’s Fair and added a warning about technological progress in his essay ‘A Message in the Time Capsule’ in his book Ideas and Opinions. Novelist and scientist C.P. Snow warned about this in his lecture ‘The Two Cultures’ (1959).

He argued that science and the humanities, which represented the ‘intellectual life of humanity,’ had split into ‘two cultures,’ thus destroying social integrity and ushering in an unbalanced civilisation. It seems to me that we are re-inviting the loneliness that haunted people in the hunter-gatherer period.

Yet, we claim that all these arrangements, these technological communication systems, are for the sake of alleviating loneliness!”

“Through Iosif Samuilovich Shklovsky and Nikolai Kardashev, Carl Sagan clearly identified the problem as a ‘Self-Destructive Condition’ (or Self-Destruction): namely, Technological Adolescence.

Everyone from Frank Drake to Freeman Dyson reiterated the same point. This imbalanced technological civilization has arisen solely for business, just to stay ahead of others in profit-a state of technological self-destruction.

And those who are its pioneers have increased their wealth and are monstrously concentrating capital; yet, they continue to talk about a knowledge-based society.

Furthermore, digital technology naturally advocates collective participation and collective knowledge, but extreme centralisation is what is happening-what a contrast! Tolerance and flexibility are disappearing. These factors have seriously led to a cultural crisis, and we are moving towards a cultural conflict.”

“This Technological Adolescence is the most dangerous time, or the life-or-death juncture, for a civilisation. Carl Sagan further specified the problem in the 1980s in his ‘Encyclopedia Galactica’ and ‘Who Speaks for Earth’ articles.

Using the Drake Equation, which was formulated by Frank Drake, scientists calculated that sixty percent of civilizations could be destroyed every century due to this very reason.

This means that sixty out of one hundred Earth-like civilisations could be annihilated. This is a gravely alarming concern (or a severely alarming number).”

So, what is the point of rushing towards Technological Adolescence just to finish the syllabus? Is the fundamental goal of education to create human beings or business tools? Will these very children become the intolerant, profit-and-loss-driven people of the future, mere pawns in the business world? Will they lack any sign of humanity even if they are anatomically human? Will they be consumed by intolerance and inflexibility?

“So, what will become of humanity’s slow, gradual ascent over three million years and its self-realization in the universe?”