Modern Machinery and Its Influence on Human Beings

Like so many products of technology—consider the automobile or the Walkman used by teenagers—television can isolate people even within the family. It sometimes seems as though technology, which began by encouraging human cooperation during the Neolithic Revolution, has now become a source of personal isolation.

Yet technology, whose immense benefits in other areas make it easy to defend, is here to stay, and we must learn to live with it. Heidegger himself, a philosopher often regarded as hostile to technology, said that those who are simply “against” it are inauthentic and lack an intelligent understanding of history. Technology is part of us and of our destiny. We cannot live without it and, in a certain sense, it forms part of our very being. What we are as modern human beings is partly defined by what we have become through technology.

Television is also here to stay, and we must learn to live with it. Within the home, it must be managed and selected carefully, with limits and counterbalances. It will never replace books and music unless we allow it to do so. Beyond the home, it must be discussed critically. We must demand higher cultural standards and remain alert to its subtle power.

That power always belongs to human beings, and its use is a human responsibility. When CNN, for example, concealed the reality of the Gulf War behind the images of a sanitized network in which there was little sign of suffering, cruelty or bloodshed, the responsibility belonged to the political manipulators, not to the technology itself.

Above all, attention must be paid to the extraordinary educational and cultural possibilities of the medium. Two classic examples are enough. Those who were able to watch them at the time will surely remember two series related to science and technology. One was Cosmos, by Carl Sagan, the astronomer and humanist who had recently died. The other was The Ascent of Man, written and presented for British television by another remarkable figure, Jacob Bronowski, a mathematician and poet.

British television, perhaps the finest in the world, also produced an experiment in which the stars were distinguished philosophers.

Some years ago, The Times of London commented on the success of a BBC television series: “For seriousness and scope, there has been nothing like it on mainstream television.” It consisted of 44 interviews with some of the leading English-speaking philosophers of the time, including Isaiah Berlin, A. J. Ayer, R. M. Hare, W. V. Quine, Noam Chomsky and Hilary Putnam.

They spoke with Bryan Magee about their work in modern philosophy. They explained what they were doing, why their work mattered, what the active currents of contemporary philosophy proposed, and which questions remained alive in moral philosophy, political philosophy and the philosophy of science.

It should be noted that even people involved in “serious” television initially had reservations about the project. What could possibly be shown in a program about philosophy? The answer—“philosophers talking”—conflicted with a professional rule: “Do not tell viewers; show them.”

It was assumed that the last thing viewers wanted to watch was a series of “talking heads,” supposedly suitable only for radio. That assumption proved to be a false prejudice about what is and is not visually interesting.

Later analysis showed that, for most people, the most interesting objects in the world are other people. If the most compelling image is that of another human being in action, an even greater attraction lies in watching gifted people speak about what they know. Letters sent to the newspaper made the point clearly: it was fascinating to watch people think, especially when they were exceptionally good at it.

That experience also helped break down other inhibitions. One was the belief that television should limit itself to showing events because people were not interested in fully understanding problems. Another was that television should only entertain. It was also assumed that viewers rejected difficult subjects and that the central objective was to hold their attention by any possible means.

The experiment showed that serious and intelligent discussion could go beyond the usual goals of informing, entertaining and amusing, even though these remained legitimate purposes of the medium.

Returning to the television available in our own country, there are two broad categories of viewers: those who watch ordinary broadcast channels and those who have cable television.

The more optimistic viewers tend to belong to the latter group. Their experience is enriched by a wider range of choices, less restricted by bureaucracy and more closely connected with the outside world. They are also among those best able to imagine the creative possibilities of this technological wonder of our time.