Destiny Domesticated: The Rebirth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Technology

6. Awesome Techonologies

121 SIX AWESOME TECHNOLOGIES All that is great stands in a storm. —Plato, Republic, 497d Ode to Man When the question is raised, in philosophy and sciences such as paleontology , regarding which features distinguish Homo sapiens from the rest of the animal kingdom, the answers most often given, besides language, are man’s creative abilities and the use of tools. As a “needy” and “naturally artificial” being, man has depended on technology for his survival ever since he first appeared on the evolutionary stage (Plessner 1975, 309, 385).1 That technology simultaneously constitutes man’s grandeur and at the same time has a tragic dimension is poignantly expressed in the choir’s first stationary song (stasimon) in Sophocles’s Antigone (Sophocles 1991, verses 368–410): Strophe 1 Many are the wonders, none is more wonderful than what is man. This it is that crosses the sea with the south winds storming and the waves swelling, breaking around him in roaring surf. He it is again who wears away the Earth, oldest of gods, immortal unwearied, 122 DESTINY DOMESTICATED as the ploughs wind across her from year to year when he works her with the breed that comes from horses. Antistrophe 1 The tribe of the lighthearted birds he snares and takes prisoner the races of savage beasts and the brood of the fish of the sea, with the close-spun web of nets. A cunning fellow is man. His contrivances make him master of beasts of the field and those that move in the mountains. So he brings the horse with the shaggy neck to bend underneath the yoke; and also the untamed mountain bull; Strophe 2 And speech and windshift thought and the tempers that go with city living he has taught himself, and how to avoid the sharp of frost, when lodging is cold under the open sky and pelting strokes of rain. He has a way against everything, and he faces nothing that is to come without contrivance. Only against death can he call on no means of escape; but escape from hopeless diseases he has found in the depths of his mind. Antistrophe 2 With some sort of cunning, inventive beyond all expectation he reaches sometimes evil, and sometimes good. If he honors the laws of earth, and the justice of the gods he has confirmed by oath, high is his city; no city has he with whom dwells dishonor Awesome Technologies 123 prompted by recklessness. He who is so, may he never share my hearth! may he never think my thoughts! In the literature this stationary song by the choir is often described as the “Ode to Man,” and, on the face of it, it does appear to be a song of praise on man’s technical ingenuity. The first stanza sketches the technological achievements of humankind (cf. Tabachnick 2004). The first strophe describes how “inventive man” controls nonliving nature, for instance by sailing the seas and ploughing Mother Earth. The second strophe shows how man gains control of living nature, as evidenced by hunting, the domestication of the horse and of the bull. In the third strophe, attention shifts to “cultural technologies.” Man has learned how to speak, has built cities and founded societies. He finds a technical solution for nearly everything. Only Hades, death, he cannot outrun. On the face of it, the final strophe is also part of the song of praise on technology. Although this strophe warns that technology may also be used for evil ends, this warning seems primarily aimed at the users of technology, calling on them to “honor the laws of earth, and the justice of the gods” (Sophocles 1991, 195). In a more contemporary translation, one could say that this strophe contains an instrumentalist view of technology, a perspective in which technical means are presented as being neutral. Depending on the use of these means, the effect will be either beneficent or disastrous. Those who use them sensibly, the last strophe seems to suggest, may count on gaining esteem. In the incantation that ends the strophe, technology’s abusers are cast out. The fact that we are dealing with a song of praise on man follows from the ascription of technical achievements to mankind itself. Little mention is made of divine assistance or intervention. Whereas in Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound it is the Titans’ son Prometheus who steals technology—in the shape of fire—from...