European Graduate School EGS - Media Communication Studies Program


Printed in: Philosophy and Technology. Ed.F.Rapp., Reidel: Dordrecht 1983. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 80.

FROM THE PHENOMENON TO THE EVENT OF TECHNOLOGY



A Dialectical Approach to Heidegger's Phenomenology

The philosophy of technology must deal with a phenomenon which will likely decide the survival of the human race. An erroneous judgment on the nature of technology could have fatal consequences. What we know about technology appears to be insufficient. For if we really understood what technology is, we would then be in a position to effectively arrest the rapid destruction of our world through modern technology. A number of technologies, without which we could not live, shape our daily lives. Yet despite this seeming familiarity the fundamental concept common to them all persistently escapes philosophical definition. The traditional assumption is that technologies are means to certain ends, as could be seen in the cratsman's technology. If so, this would mean the present destruction through technology is due to a false use of instruments, to an inadequate determination of technology's objectives. But this plausible explanation is refuted by the fact that neither new goals which are set nor other applications of instruments have made a change in the course of advancing destruction. The scientific-technical definition of technology as applied natural science is well- founded, and its rational employment for a purpose in the life world appears to be unproblematic. 1 But such explanations become questionable when they only theoretically prove the life-sustaining function of a phenomenon, whereas, according to all experience, it brings about our premature death. How can a technology be "true" whose successes poison our food, pollute our water, despoil and disfigure our land through poor construction planning, devastate our forests, mercilessly exterminate our fellow creatures and derange our own psyches? By now it has become clear that it is not the individual, isolated error of technology which will kill us; rather, the human race is condemned by our entire way of living, a mode ever more determined by technology.

But is this technology the real technology? Have we not perhaps failed to recognize the true meaning of the phenomenon of technology? In that case we must earnestly begin our inquiries into the essence of technology anew and test all answers hitherto given. In his radical critique of Western philosophy, of metaphysics, Martin Heidegger also dealt with technology as one mode of our customary thinking and acting, and brought out its crucial significance for the present. Heidegger's hermeneutical phenomenology allows the phenomenon of technology to be comprehended for the first time as the "event of man." 2 This means that man becomes what he is, becomes man in and through technology and only then is he capable of satisfying the universal order in his actions. All prior knowledge of technology is thus radically overthrown. Heidegger's phenomenology demands an entirely altered attitude towards life, it calls for a leap into non-metaphysical thinking. For the time being only very few individuals will be capable of such. But Heidegger's leap will not come without having been prepared; its jump-off base is contained in the theory and praxis which have pre- vailed up to now. Metaphysics, of which instrumental technology is to be considered a part, can only be overcome when it is understood more truly and intrinsically. Our knowledge of and our dealings with technology both contain the adequate concept of technology as improbable as this may seem in the face of the world's destruction. The present death-bringing technology is, though in a totally distorted way, the selfsame life-sustaining technology of man conceived of originally. Heidegger's "event of technology" expresses therefore not a new phenomenon, but rather the hidden meaning of present-day technology.

In order to be capable of questioning anew we must learn to look at technology differently and not to merely accept it as a fact already recognized. If we can recapture the "foreign" way of seeing i.e., looking at an assumedly familiar phenomenon as if for the first time, without preconceptions, as we did when it was foreign to us--a number of things become obvious. We see how manifold and divergent the use of technology is in science, industry, and society; how greatly our understanding of it must be differentiated from the actual use; and we see that our theories about technology can again be something quite different. The enumeration and classificatory analysis of this pluralistic occupation with technology alone fills an entire book 3 and yet makes no change in the doubtfulness of such pluralism. This diversity is contradictory, it blocks a common understanding and hinders a meaningful interaction with technology. It creates de facto a situation in which each person unthinkingly does what he wants with technology. To counteract this, an attempt should be made to comprehend the phenomenon of technology in a unified sense, as a unity beyond all its contradictions, to be achieved with the help of a dialectical method learned from Hegel. Hegel's dialectics 4 can be defined as a technology of reorientation, of contrary thinking through permanent repudiation of sense certainty and common sense. Precisely this makes a dialectical procedure possible, and instead of rejecting contradictions, allows for their inclusion and ultimate synthesis as being fruitful for the investigation. The justification of a phenomenon, if only a right to a power of evocation, is still guaranteed, even when it is refuted. The usual black and white picture painted of the world is thereby excluded, just as is the tendency of a lazy mind to prefer an easily enjoyed plausibility to those rarer fruits attainable only through strenuous mental exertion. The labors of the theorists of technology as well as their opposing views are taken so seriously that it is essentially impossible to take sides. Such theories are to be constantly compared with experience, with the practical use of technology. We must not be allowed to avoid looking back at the history of technology and of its concept. It must be noted that those born of a later technological generation are not principally right, nor are present technical definitions superior to those of the past merely because they claim to be more comprehensive and enlightened. The division between theory and praxis with respect to the phenomenon of technology is not to be simply established so that we may then proceed as before; rather, we must draw systematic conclusions from it. Even if the truth about technology is to be found only in bits and pieces and is often barely recognizable in a greatly diverging theory and praxis, this should not give cause for resignation. Each aspect of the technological problem has its own truth which must be "preserved" in all its contradiction in a dialectical critique of the totality of the phenomenon. Dialectics has always been guided by such a wholeness; it corresponds to the wholeness of our spontaneous comprehension of the world. Like this comprehension, neither is dialectics the sum of its individual parts; it is rather a mode of existence, a being-in-the-world as precondition of theory and praxis. Heidegger's presentation of the event of technology disclosed in advance the phenomenon of technology. But perhaps technology can, for our commonplace understanding, only be grasped by following the dialectical path through technological knowledge taken here.

I. INHUMAN TECHNOLOGY: MACHINES

A technological knowledge which, in its analysis of actual technology, never questions the instrumental character of technology and which considers it a means of remodeling the external world possesses the advantage of being largely free from ideological consideration towards man. This explains the fact that the philosophy of technology, which adheres closely to the technical understanding of the engineering sciences, exhibits in this instance exactly the opposite of that which it claims in its basic tenets. In the individual case mechanical technology appears as the phenomenon of experience in its precise immediacy. Practical technology (Realtechnik) has fundamentally changed our daily life and has become ever more dissociated from man as we know him in his basic nature. A simple imitation of nature no long occurs; instead, functional operations of technology replace primal nature. An immediate relation to the products manufactured, as was once possible in the craftsman's technology, no long exists. According to Rapp's comprehensive analysis, mechanical technology is based on anonymous processes, inorganic homogeneity, and functional reproducibility. 5 Its procedure is indirect 6 and its progress lies precisely in its transferral of work once performed by man to automated machines. Technological feasibility, not human desirability, becomes the ontological standard of measure. Man is considered a system disturbance which must be eliminated as far as possible.

To be sure, it is emphasized that all this takes place solely for the benefit of man himself; but such a wholesale assurance makes no change in the demonstrable "inhumanity" of technology as tool. Nothing new is established with such an observation; but the trivial fact that technology is not identical with man is taken seriously and systematically. The significance that such inhumanity of technology can have for us becomes immediately apparent when we are forced to admit that the human world of today has itself become a machine. But this mechanical system does not rule over other things; instead it has constructed a world in accordance with the machine. The order of such a world has little similarity with the order we know; we vainly seek hierarchical structures. Machine technology is also to be found operative in those areas in which, as administration, it fulfills political tasks and functions in cycles. Nodal points, those central connection points which could be cited as proof of technical hierarchy, are in fact mutually dependent upon their many sources of information. All components of the system are equally essential; integration and not subordination is what is observed. The machine is not an instrument, as we would have it. It was indeed originally directed towards a goal, and applies the laws of nature with a definite intent. But machine technology is functional, not instrumental. From our standpoint this appears to be the same thing, but there is in fact a fundamental difference. To fulfill a function means to be oriented from within, to be defined by itself and its possibilities. To be an instrument means, on the other hand, to be employed from without, to be employed for a purpose which has only a coincidental relation to the characteristic quality of the phenomenon itself. Thus being used as an instrument for something else is a state of being that no one, and nothing, is willing to tolerate by nature. Kant called the use of man as an instrument immoral. It must now be considered "un-technical" to want to employ machines contrary to their function. The use of an automobile to commit suicide occurs more often than one might believe, its own true function being thus disregarded and remaining unfulfilled. Nor does a motor vehicle stuck in a traffic jam fulfill its function, even if rush hours appear unavoidable and the drive to work requires the instrumental use of an automobile. The cities and rural areas destroyed by motor traffic are just as far from being functional in their true sense. Not only is the anger and disappointment over the destruction a factor which delicately impairs the social climate conducive to successful driving, but beyond this, the loss is the infamous "price" we must pay for "progress," a price which is not demanded by the automobile in order to function as a mechanical system. It is a system which of its nature wants simply to function successfully, regardless of purpose. Slashed tires of cars parked on bicycle paths or sidewalks are an unmistakable indication of function failure, or more precisely, improper parking leads to a situation in which the driving function of a car cannot be realized. If the purpose, which has been assigned to machines by the individual or a group does not disturb or disrupt the function of the machine, it will be tolerated. This must not be anthropomorphically misunderstood as the intention of the machine itself; it is merely an objectively establishable fact. For when a functionally inappropriate purpose is obstinately insisted upon, even the best technology has a destructive effect. In a strict sense this is also valid for the misuse of information through technological means in totalitarian states. The function of technical information systems is to produce the most adequate image possible of the world in the form of data. But the use of the most modern computers to tabulate an election result of 99.9% tells those in power nothing about the mood of the voters, and is a senseless waste of time and energy.

Technology in its earlier craftsman's form fulfilled the Aristotelian criterion for those phenomena which are not self- determining. Machine technology however exhibits the characteristics of an indisputable autonomy; its functioning obeys an intrinsic law, is clearly automatic. This in no way makes technology the subject; it means technology is apparently no longer adequately describable within the customary subject-object relationship. Its liberation from human standards of measure is unavoidable, something expressed to no small extent in the explosive increase in the so-called unforeseeable side effects which often eclipse the main purpose of a technological undertaking (e.g., the Aswan High Dam). But technology is "free" only in the sense that even for stubborn humanists the Alpha Centauri is free from "service to man." That this inhuman technology occurs in our midst and all around us, and is for this very reason indissolubly linked with our destiny, leads to the very result that a technology, whose automatic functioning has been disturbed by a purpose, can produce nothing but man's destruction. This means that the increasingly unsuccessful living of our life in the technological world is a relevant and objective indication of a functional disorder of machine technology, for which we have to answer. A technology left to its own resources and this always means only a mechanical system developed with the help of man and derived from an understanding of its function and purposes which instrinsically correspond to it-would by its own nature have developed neither nuclear power plants nor hydrogen bombs, neither lethal poison gases for chemical warfare, nor forty-story apartment houses. Senselessly high risks, potential annihilation of all living things, and housing developments which are unlivable for their intended occupants do not fulfill the basic function of every technology, namely, to be a technology for life and of life.

Technology represents the decisive means oflife, of existence for the human race. This remains latently present in the form of experience, despite the sense of foreignness towards and defense against it. We rely on machines constantly, without ever accounting to ourselves for the extraordinary confidence this reliance expresses. Should we ask how it is that this confidence remains unshaken even by technological catastrophes, we would come upon an unexpected characteristic of the phenomenon of technology: in their own way, through reliability, adequacy, and necessity, machines fulfill the ideal of perfection as a matter of course. In the language of cybernetics it makes sense to say about machines that their center is everywhere, that their system is perfectly structured in function as well as in relation. The theological analogy is evident. Thinking sub specie machinae has replaced the infallible God as well as fallible man. 7 If man should free himself from the conception of his being unique, and should come to comprehend personality and morality as the imp0rovised solutions of an "imperfect being" (Gehlen), he would be astounded at how closely machines approximate the self-image of man, how they are more human than humans. Automatons outdo their human models in the degree of their dominance over nature; they possess a greater capability of transforming the world and are unsurpassed in their uniform and calculable aspect. Machines are always objective, they have an exceptionally high load capacity, yet are non-directive, as are good teachers. Through their function, both machines and teachers make a learning process possible. They allow for advancement and a common experiencing without forcing it. No machine will by its own nature ever force man to submit to its function, nor infringe upon our freedom to prepare our death. 8 This means that the rockets carrying hydrogen bombs, automatically steering towards their goal, are neither automatic in the true sense, nor do they fulfill a technological function. They are exclusively instruments of suicide, conceived by human beings who have not understood their technology. But even the heart and lung machine in the intensive care ward--doubtlessly a contribution to a technology for life--becomes as hostile to life as a bomb when handled unfreely. The machine's function does not however hinder our potential for death, only the aim of the hospital, an externally imposed purpose, lends itself to the prevention of our dying, when that time has come. Any number of cases of people "technically alive," attesting to such misfunction, can be cited. Modern technology "responds" functionally to its own possibilities and does not impose external objectives. Violence towards nature does not constitute technology, but is instead caused by our existing handling of nature, which in its turn misuses technology. Technology gives an unmistakable indication of its abuse by threatening to become a technology deadly to the human race instead of being one of life.

Human identity in opposition to machines proves to be abstract. This does not mean that man is a machine and should therefore be perceived one-sidedly, from a biologically behavioristic viewpoint. Through machines certain human attributes are fulfilled--those attributes of which man is so painfully conscious, due to their absence, but which are so essential to his wholeness. In this sense the machine is human. It does not replace man; it compensates for his errors. It expands him in his potential, is an organ of man threatened by that quick success which brings failure in the long run. In this respect the machine does not differ from the hand or spleen. The antithesis organic-inorganic, of living and dead matter, has long become untenable. Machines belong to man's being as much as eating, breathing, and thinking--and not by pure chance. The symbiosis between man and machine is the necessary expression of our life-systems, it is a humane mode of being-in-the world. 9..The important thing is to let machines be machines through us, to learn a more expanded way of living from their function as newly disclosed, human relationship with nature. But fearful, we suppress such a mechanical realization of our own potential. Instead we leave it to the irresponsible power of government, to the "objectivity" generated by society, and to the irrational fear of hostile factions to employ scientific-technological developments solely for the establishment of a purpose, with absolutely no conscionable consideration towards technology itself. In our need we, the powerless and potential victims, develop an "ethic of the technological age," and would rather amputate our technological organ in the belief that we cannot prevent its misuse. But we should not be afraid of opposing--together with technology--its indiscriminate expansion so indifferent to the environment, and in so doing, to restore to technical realizability its vital meaning. The machine not subjected to short-sighted goals produces the phenomenon, as all nature produces, and at the same time respects their "concealedness." 10 For in any way other than with such regard, technology would preprogram its own misfunctioning and inevitably its own destruction. In that case it would not be functioning according to the one technically just and appropriate understanding. A human technology which is not universally valid remains incomplete, a situation today which we must all too painfully endure. Individual, isolated successes gratify certain interests, but do not count technically. Correctly understood, machine technology produces not individual artifacts, but above and beyond this, the valid order for the pehnomena of the human world. Technology has no interest in achieving a certain end, it wants to succeed, like every order. The meaning of humanness is in no way altered through technology. On the contrary, such seemingly unfulfillable ideals as gentleness, selflessness, and love suddenly appear to be realizable. A technology which is no longer misunderstood as instrument, but rather comprehended as functional, will not however become a myth which brings forth no works, nor will it revert back to magic practices of the savage mind. It remains a real and working technology, but as an alternative to being an instrument, is now art. Works of art have always been useless, free, creative, and yet of a significant effectiveness. Without intending to, they shape the world and work through images. It is as impossible for man to withdraw from his non-instrumental technology as it is from the Mona Lisa. A fulfilled function is convincing.


II. HUMANE TECHNOLOGY: CYBERNETIC ART

In the synthesis now possible, which conceives of technology as art and which follows almost freely and naturally from the description of the phenomenon of technology, an ancient European knowledge is renewed. Simultaneously, we begin to adequately interpret the confusing phenomenal findings that technology is humane and is not at our arbitrary disposal. Such interpretation is normative, but only in as far as it respects those rules existent in the nature of man, and which cannot be selected by us. "Techne" was the Greek philosophy of life. In that time, art was not yet conceived of separately from technology, from the work of the artist. Not until the one-sided preference for usefulness in the modern age, and the systematic design for domination of nature11 following Bacon's teachings, did technology become a weapon against nature. And with it the meaning of art was subjugated. Man had naturally invented tools for survival long before the appearance of modern technology. But life was not understood as being synonymous with breaking out of the unity, the sense of oneness with the universe, God, and nature; nor was it taken as a challenge to this unity, or as a struggle against this original order of things. 12 In recent times machine technology has been restoring art to its place in daily life. The art movement represented by the "Bauhaus" which to this date remains exemplary in architecture and functional art, strove for a bond between, a synthesis of art and technology in the "best form." In other words, the contours of a thing and its function should find reciprocal expression in, and be mutually dependent upon one another. Necessity and use, the idols of modern technology, and the pretext for a separation of art and technology, reveal their forgotten reality in the Bauhaus concept, a reality in touch with and correspondent to the environment, one which does not interfere with, but instead suffices for universal functioning according to its abilities. We must not be allowed to willfully destroy if we want to stay alive; and we do not actually need to. What benefit does the human race derive after all from a technology which produces nuclear power plants, closing an alleged energy gap by decades, but at the same time opens an abyss of a millenary threat caused by "final storage" of atomic wastes? Successfully functioning technology does not apply to the individual case; it is oriented in relation to the universe. For only a truly successful function in the long run is in the interest of that individual species calling itself man and existing as technology.

Modern technology bypasses purpose. It does not serve the end of intoxicating us with freedom and power, of producing masters to rule over the earth. Technology answers such misapprehension of its reality with "side effects" the world over. The structural identity of natural and manufactured products becomes apparent in the decay with which both react to inappropriate use. The fundamental condition of technology is also its function of disclosure, of bringing about the world in its realities, letting it occur. Technology also finds its perfection in this function. The condition of technological working is realized only in its complete state of being, in its wholeness, not in any degree of reduction prescribed by individual interests. Architectural-constructional technology is indifferent to the house, but dwelling is essential to it. Transportation technology is concerned only with transporting, not with the means of transportation. Dwelling and travelling are ways in which man gives an account of whether he has comprehended his role in the universe. This is to be understood in a phenomenal manner: "home," and all that this concept embodies, is realized for us in dwelling. Heidegger defined home as the sojourn of mortals among things, under the heavens and upon earth. 13 If we do not inhabit the earth, we remain strangers. Human ethics is expressed in dwelling as well as manifesting moderation and respect for the sensual and the transcendent. Rules and the justification of ethics are without foundation unless there is this experience of dwelling. In driving, on the other hand, we experience the world of others, and understand them as either close to us or distant, in adventure or danger. Of course, we accompany ourselves on every "excursion" (Bloch), but we return home as changed people in the end. The individual technologies of dwelling and travelling are unimportant--as long as their respective functions fulfill the meaning of dwelling and travelling. No technology by its nature "wants" to change these basic modes of living, yet we employ technologies of construction and transportation which flagrantly violate the intrinsic functions of dwelling and driving, and which cause us to stumble towards the brink of existence. Or can we truly state that we feel at home in our despoiled environment and in the "silos" of our metropolises which we call apartment "houses"? Do we learn to live "ethically"--i.e., as humans? Opinion polls do indeed report positive attitudes towards the life-styles in large cities and their green suburbs, but the rampant increase in mental illnesses in both living areas speak another language. Man is an unexcelled master in the art of intellectual self-deception, but it will not protect him from the physical and mental injuries which contradict his self-estimation. Similarly, modern traffic conditions exact a bloody toll of lives "worthy" of a Roman arena, and allow us a paltry second-hand experience. We bring our preprogrammed expectations with us on our travels, and they are promptly fulfilled--from Singapore to Tierra del Fuego: Viennese sausages, Lowenbrau and streusel cake for Germans, wherever they go.

Technological working has nothing in common with such degenerate particularity. Technological functioning is concerned with truth, and therefore the totality, the wholeness of a process is addressed. This also must not be misunderstood as metaphysics, but merely as positive evidence of that which we have always known about technology. As soon as it begins to function successfully, technology is an adequate condition of the world process. How else could it succeed? Technology becomes expressive and tangible in its work, but is not to be determined by its artifacts. It can be reproduced however through philosophical contemplation, and at the same time practiced as a technology of truth. This has always been granted the "useless" arts, and now is just as valid for the most modern cybernetic technology. Microprocessors complement nature in an altogether natural way; or is there a single unnatural component in this technology, human ingenuity included? Technical perfection 14 embodies beauty. In eternal recurrence technology occurs as art.

Cybernetic machine systems do not manipulate the process, but rather, belong to the process, are a part of it. In this way, and in no other, can they be justly described. Man alone is the manipulator. The technical art-work process corresponds to the purest form of process. Information is neither presorted for a determined purpose, nor instrumentally misappropriated. Instead, the function, in the form of an expressed statement, results from significant information having undergone a process-as is the case with a work of art. The sense of function remains flexible and unrestrained with every new discovery and with every new application. In this manner, the cybernetic technologies make possible the rendering of true occurence, and not willful dominance by man. The more objective technology is, and this also means the less it is determined by external, irrelevant purpose, the better it can attain its humane purpose. The countries of the Eastern Block have had to learn the hard way in their attempt to seriously bind science and technology to dialectical materialism, to thereby reject certain technologies as being capitalistic, or to devise an ideological biology of their own. But even our "objective" standpoint is often only an economic one! Instead, cybernetic technologies can be free arts, free to be true, and liberating for man. Modern technology then becomes the art of humanity. 15 It humanizes man by healing him of his anthropocentric violence which he--aided by instrumental technology--is presently carrying to all extremes. The consequence is world destruction. But at the same time it becomes clear that, approached anthropocentrically, technology can only be misused. Man does not need to be the center of the universe; he experiences himself as artist in modern technology, as participant in an all-encompassing game which develops his abilities. This technical development occurs incessantly, and is the art of life.

An interpretation of technology as cybernetic art has not only to struggle merely against the fact that such a mode of being has been very seldom realized up to now (and therefore might well be phenomenally inexpressive, might appear to be speculative). More importantly, a destructive contradiction has already been built into its description. For we, as the "artificial," as technical beings by nature, are inevitably destroying the preexistent natural order. 16 With technology, man is apparently withdrawing himself inexorably from the nature within himself, the nature out of which he evolved. The fluctuation between tensing and relaxing, characteristic of all biological processes, is being forced to conform more strictly to technical processes which always remain invariable. 17 Even relaxation regidifies in homogeneous free time activities treated as technology. We find ourselves part of a "techno evolution" (Ellul), whose perfection is making us not into technicians, but into more figures in a technical synthesis of the arts. Through the cybernetic machine, in the end, man and machine will be brought together in a synthesis of a work of art honoring the artificialness of both--but missing the link to life and to our nature. The human world would then become a gigantic "happening," loud and senseless. Because of this the suspicion becomes conclusive that it is precisely the artificiality of our present existence which must be made responsible for the econological crisis. Inhuman machine technology set free its contradiction-- the all-too-human art-technology. In it, man consciously places himself in opposition to nature. He sets himself "free" from nature. The new "second nature" becomes purely human. Only within nature's systems are there recognized successes. Mutual effect is their model reality. The framework (Gestell) rules unconditionally. 18 The development towards total artificiality in recent conceptions of a "soft technology" or a "biotechnology," among others, is recognized in being opposed.


III. HUMAN BEING: THE EVENT OF TECHNOLOGY

We must not allow ourselves to be misled by the fact that all life has two sides, life and death; or that, often, from a distorted viewpoint, death is taken for life. The arrogant "No" to nature as well as the violent dream of dominance over it, is indeed a possible mode of being for art-technology, but it is not characteristic. On the other hand, the path leading "back to nature," in its denial of our own artificiality, also leads us astray. Instead, we must learn to live with the realization that artificiality is the nature of man, and that technology, in all its so uncommonly diverse forms, is the realized, cosmic mode of being peculiar to our nature and which must be further perfected. Technology is the human way of corresponding to the universe. Considered abstractly, technology could indeed also be "untrue," but if such were the case, how could we still be in existence today, having made such a fundamentally wrong judgment about ourselves? The turning 19 away from artificial death towards technical life occurred at every moment in which we survived. It is essential that we now comprehend this relation of things and see in the merely "trivial" phenomenon of technology the "event of technology" which is of vital concern to us, first and foremost. The substance of things, not techniques, seemed to decide about our life up to now. But in truth, only techniques are real and the "substances" are our irresponsible projections. Men have long been in agreement on the decisive substances--freedom, equality, fraternity, peace--who would dispute them? The way in which we deal with them is what condemns our technologies, not the subject matter itself. But unsuccessful functioning of technology also brings their meaning to light; the only thing that can kill us is that which keeps us alive. Deadly-ness is the reverse side of lively-ness, nothing in the universe is excepted to this rule. Justice is valid for all phenomena. The death-bringing technology is the negative of the life-sustaining technology. 20 Both attest to the "event of technology" in which man becomes himself--or fails himself; in which case the human race will, justifiably, perish. We can meaningfully correspond to all phenomena through technology, and in our actions and thought we can respond to the world in a manner it deserves. The more attentive, the more refined our technologies become--from the practical technology of an engineer to the symbolic-affective technology of the poet--the easier it will be to live. Through our technologies we participate in the universal successful functioning which avoids violence to nature. The "event of technology," for all its differentiation, is simple in its basic sense. The answer from the universe is life or death. Whoever misinterprets his own event of becoming, be it man or stone, shall not become himself. He thereby forces himself into nothingness. The event of becoming is the guarantee of "ownness" (Eigenes) within the whole. It can be monitored anytime through the condition of the particular species. And we know whether the human race will live or die. The interpreters cannot misinterpret forever.

The present destruction of the world reveals itself as the refusal to accept our technology of life. All technologies whose perfection is in accord with the universe correspond to our life pulses. Until now this was impartially admitted only by natural technologies--from breathing to the metabolic process. A mode of living, oriented in relation to the universe, and whose form has been fulfilled by the philosophy and religion teachers of the human race for thousands of years, has been misunderstood for too long as naive idealism. At the same time the universe has been answering the so extremely distorted existence of modern man clearly and appropriately with deprivation and annihilation. But if man and things are, according to the universal measure, left to be as they are by their nature, then we solve our problems and fulfill our tasks effortlessly, almost unintentionally; phenomena become technically approachable paths to identity. Even in instruments, when appropriately used, the essence of a thing can still be respected. For man the technician this means radically rejecting presence as an accomplished fact, Being as possession, time as the pressure of time.21

Mortality is the essential wager for man. No institution, no tradition survives its defenders; they will all be mere data in an electronic archive in a few technical decades. Every minute people are born who have no "sense of reality" of the age in which we live. For their survival they demand that to which they are cosmically entitled: love, natural unravaged living space, and power for no one. These human beings know intuitively and experience physically that they need nothing more than this in order to live a fulfilled life--in spite of those sufferings which cannot be avoided22 and which are themselves part of living. A perception, open to everything around us and a characteristic of technical reason, hears in the particular the tone of the universe and is horrified by rigid particularism. This horror, which no one has to evoke since it is in accord with our way of living, is what urges on man the technician. Experienced in fear, trained in differentiated technologies, and with an open eye toward the world, he has no enemy to dread. As long as our instrumental technology does not run amok and lead us into catastrophic destruction, there is every reason to believe we can look forward to the imminent birth of man in the "event of technology."

University of Hamburg