Slavery of Technology in our time It is questionable, if my topic is relevant within the framework of slavery.

In common speech word slavery is used on many different senses for example man as a slave of laws of nature. But a suspicion arises if this way of speech makes the notion of slavery too hazy, melting it together with the notion of necessity. The topic of slavery reduces back to the question of freedom - extreme metaphysician who's pathos is "all or nothing" claims that if we cannot be totally free we have no freedom - at the end we are all slaves. This kind of understanding seems to be dangerous in pure practical context: if we generalize the content of the term "slavery" to all humans then there is no difference if we for example oppress directly other people or not. Nevertheless, our intuition denies admitting that a successful businessman and lowpaid worker are equally enslaved. At the same time I am not supporting a point of view that according to the term "slavery" illustrates only relationships among humans - one man's (master's) violence towards another person (slave). The philosophical analysis has shown that this kind of conception is too narrow, let us remind Hegel's dialectics of slave and master: even the master gets his being-a-master from slave. Or Marx's conception about economic relations: economical basis determines producing. If to concentrate on relationships between humans - which I am not doing - then, in my opinion, we should look slavery as an extreme example of power relationships. On the philosophical ground we shouldn't discuss over this one issue but rather over the power relationships in general. Foucault, for example, has done that. But this kind of analysis brings up wider questions: are power relationships typical to only human relationships or is it a natural constant? Is freedom possible (not depending on superior power)? And vice versa: is it possible to be without violence, without power? We deal with these questions while discussing technique and slavery. It is sensible to talk about slavery when we differ inevitability and force. Be it naive: for example, we have to die, it is a biological fact; but if we are murdered, it is force. Slavery could be this kind of force that exerts total pressure; we lack possibility to escape it, to do choices concerning ourselves. According to this meaning the force doesn't have to be direct - one man's direct pressure against the other. Slaving can be also some artificial wider system (for example totalitarian state order. Let's leave aside the psychological aspect that some person can perceive the physical

necessity as a slavery; another person may not feel enslaved under total pressure). We can talk about the enslaving pressure towards a person in that sense. Many contemporary philosophers have researched this kind of relationships; the most famous one is probably Martin Heidegger's conception on technique.1 What is the slavery of technique about? If we consider freedom important, not just human welfare, then the most dangerous force seems to be a hidden one without any of the pressured one even noticing it. An example would be an ideological brainwash (let us remember, how ends Orwell's "1984"). If on the occasion of traditional slavery the relation between master and slave is always seen then in more complicated situations (technique for example) people don't always perceive total engagement and pressure. In case of dependency people lack ability to bring their situation under consideration (for example narcotic addiction, workaholic, consuming madness). According to Heidegger the human relation to technique is characterized by lack of knowledge, forgetfulness. Technique is conceived - and mostly today - as just a tool in a man's hand. It seems that the question is how to use technique. It is claimed that using technique causes some difficult problems but these problems can be solved: we are clever enough to deal with technique. This kind of attitude bases on simple logic - everything made by humans is secondary, stories about the revolt of technique against a man are science fiction. Following the progress of technique (that was the basis of our discussion) the line between inevitable (natural) and artificial becomes hazy (for example from lengthening a human life with gene therapy to a science fictional possibility of immortality in a virtual environment). According to Heidegger a man has lost his head in the middle of modern technique, he cannot analyze the relations we have fallen into. Let's not think technique as only machinery but also relations that professional technique using has brought with it. Namely: spread information (and noise), global markets, haziness of human nature because of gene technology, new possibilities to spy and to control (let us remember that the presupposition of the total regimes of the 20th century was the presence of mass communication tools), cyber sex - all human relationships becoming technical. Though Heidegger doesn't speak about returning to pre-technical age - this
1

See Heidegger, M. Die Frage nach der Technik. M. Heidegger. Die Technik und die Kehre. Pfullingen, Neske, 1962, S 5-36. Also in english: Heidegger, M. The Question Concerning Technology. The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays. Harper Torchbooks, 1969. P 3-35.

returning is quite doubtful. Even more important is the reflection about the essence of technics. Heidegger calls the nature of technique a German word Gestell - total disposing of wholeness that demands fitting into it from humans (for example a man as a resource). A man has accepted the game rules of the modern world as a slave because he doesn't think about his existence (prevailing value has consumering and career). Since Descartes a man has considered him as thinking subject but now he loses unnoticed his independence and becomes a companion (Bestand) in technical engagements. I am not describing only Heidegger's position here. Whole 20th century philosophy deals with the problem of man's roots. Weber talks about arising rationalbureaucratic society. Adorno speaks about the eliminative and destructive function of pop culture. Baudrillard describes modern reality as a simulacrum (difference between real and virtual disappears). Modern confusion is often called postmodernism. All these theories can be bound with Heidegger's conception of technics. The thesis "Man is a slave of technique (or something else's)" is not original, it is often talked about. But yet, if something is often talked about, it is not considered very serious - it seems that we cannot escape forgetting. Heidegger and other I mentioned discuss technics as of one's kind fate. Becoming technological was noticed already in the 19th century - it seemed like a very scary and new thing at that time and it was considered more seriously. In my opinion the most profound analyze of modern man's situation is offered by Nietzsche (the death of God and the conception of nihilism). Nietzsche calls scientific-technical creation a man's hybris towards himself ("On the Genealogy of Morals"):
Our entire attitude to nature today, our violation of nature, with the help of machines and the unimaginable inventiveness of our technicians and engineers, is hubris; our attitude to God is hubris [---]our attitude to ourselves is hubris, for we experiment with ourselves in a manner we would not permit with any animal and happily and inquisitively slit the souls of living bodies open.2

Nietzsche, F. On the Genealogy of Morals. III, 9. Translated by Ian Johnston (http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/genealogy3.htm).

Nietzsche often spoke about slave-morality or crowd-morality as inability to create one's own values. Yet he hoped that the decadence of prevailing transcendent values leads the Western culture to unavoidable catastrophe. Silent stagnation is impossible. For that reason, according to Nietzsche, our destiny is not the slavery of technology but a catastrophe where survivors are the ones who can create their own values (bermensch). The last man doesn't survive. May be Nietzsche underestimated the power of technology? Can we fight the slavery of technology? Where to find Spartacus? The 20th century philosophers are not very optimistic on that. In any case, we are not able to resign technics, turn back to nature. The case is not only about disappearing engagement between man and nature - the vision of human nature is lost (both meanings of the word "nature" quote to Greek physis). The only way to escape the slavery of technology is to reflect over it. Heidegger likes to quote on Hlderlin: where's the danger/ there rises the salvation. Heidegger alludes to the possibility to turn to the origin of technique: technique as well as art become from Greek techne. Art and poetry the most must save us. Leading postmodern theoretician Gianni Vattimo makes a proposal to take the challenge of modern technology3. Here as well is important to reflect over the nature of technology (Gestell) but the aim is not to find a replacement. Vattimo claims, supported by Heidegger, that the overwhelming force of modern technology loses its metaphysical structure, including the subject-object connection. Vattimo asks should we, in our situation, use our old vocabulary (understanding technology as slavery)? What if we accept the simulacrum and understand our own existence as a fairytale? Vattimo quotes to Nietzsche: the only possible way is to exist is to know that I am sleeping and should keep doing so (Gay Science, 54). Or Hegel's saying: freedom is perceived necessity. If we add a piece of Derrida: maybe we should resign binary oppositions - slavery/freedom, natural/technological - and think of the differance that creates those oppositions. Although these suggestions seem to be dangerous in practical context (it reminds me of some Baudrillard's critic: life is not a simulation, people are suffering for real!) they are intriguing in philosophical thinking.

See for example Vattimo, G. The end of modernity : nihilism and hermeneutics in postmodern culture. Cambridge : Polity Press, 1994.

Gianni Vattimo believes that accepting the fairy-tale - existence loses its burden of seriousness - disappears the need to violence because the thinking has no strong basis anymore. In wider perspective the problem is not about slavery alone but the power relations that passes through Western thinking (that is apparent also in the hierarchy of logic's conceptions, methods of science etc). For me personally this kind proposal seems more interesting than to look for new universal values. Leo Luks Translation from Estonian: Aire Vaher