Technology & the Shaping of the Imagination

Speaker(s): Craig Gay
Date: June 6 2012
Length: 88 min
Product ID: RGDL4200G

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Description

In an article published in 1969 entitled "In Defense of North America," Canadian political philosopher George Grant opined: "We live in the most realised technological society which has yet been; one which is, moreover, the chief imperial centre from which technique is spread around the world.... Yet the very substance of our existing which has made us the leaders in technique, stands as a barrier to any thinking which might be able to comprehend technique from beyond its own dynamic." Craig Gay wants us to consider why Grant might have said this. Why would we want to 'comprehend technology from beyond its own dynamic'? Why might the 'very substance of our technological existence' stand as a barrier to doing so? The answer to both questions, following the thought of Martin Heidegger, is that our tremendous skill at developing and deploying new technologies has distorted our imaginations in such a way that we are no longer able to see our world for what it truly is, that is, as an amazing gift. Failing to apprehend our world as a gift, furthermore, we also fail to understand ourselves, and that our principal task is to give the world back to God in thanks and praise.

See All Audio by Craig Gay

Craig Gay is Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Regent College. He also serves as the editor for Crux, a quarterly journal of Christian thought and opinion published by faculty and alumni of Regent College. He is author of Dialogue, Catalogue and Monologue, Cash Values: The Value of Money the Nature of Worth, The Way of the (Modern) World, and With Liberty and Justice for Whom?. He has been published in Christian Scholar's Review, American Journal of Sociology, Crux, and Markets & Morality, and he is the co-editor (with C. Peter Molloy) of The Way of Truth in the Present Age.