The Uncomfortable Mirror, Part 2: Technology, the Lie of Modern Civilization

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This is part 2 of a 5-part article.

Read Part 1 Here
Read Part 3 Here
Read Part 4 Here
Read Part 5 Here

One of the lies of modernity is that we are somehow better and more advanced than other societies because of technology.

But technology does nothing to change human nature; it may give us a greater ability to develop the good or evil in us as we choose, but it does nothing to fundamentally change who we are and why we do what we do.

Television, radio, electricity, computers, the Internet, and cell phones and the scientific discoveries that created them give us unprecedented opportunities to bring more light, truth, and goodness into the world and to uplift humanity.

Yet they also bring with them pornography on a mass scale as well as the ability to destroy the entire earth with weapons of mass destruction.

Creation and destruction are concomitant phenomena because they are mere reflections of our dual nature.

We must never buy into the lie that we, with our cell phones and Internet, are more advanced and are better people than our ancestors.

As historian and philosopher Will Durant wrote:

“We have not fully recovered from the Dark Ages: the insecurity that excites greed, the fear that fosters cruelty, the poverty that breeds filth and ignorance, the filth that generates disease, the ignorance that begets credulity, superstition, occultism—these still survive amongst us; and the dogmatism that festers into intolerance and inquisitions only awaits opportunity or permission to oppress, kill, ravage, and destroy.

“In this sense modernity is a cloak upon medievalism, which secretly remains; and in every generation civilization is the laborious product and precarious obligating privilege of an engulfed minority.”

I would argue that not only have we not fully recovered from the Dark Ages, but also we will never be “fully recovered” and rid humanity of insecurity, cruelty, greed, ignorance, and superstition.

We must study history in order that we might never deceive ourselves into believing that technology gives us the luxury of relaxation from our duties to maintain freedom.

As the American Founders taught us, “Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.”

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Stephen Palmer is a book writer for mission-driven leaders, a small business lead generation website design architect and persuasive website copywriter, a co-founder of The Center for Social Leadership, and the author of Uncommon Sense: A Common Citizen’s Guide to Rebuilding America.

He co-authored the New York Times bestseller Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity, as well as Hub Mentality: Shifting from Business Transactions to Community Interaction.

He is a liberal-arts graduate of George Wythe University and a graduate and faculty member of the “non-traditional business school” Wizard Academy.

Stephen resides in Round Rock, Texas with his gorgeous wife Karina, awesome son Alex, and princess daughters Libby, Avery, and Laela.

Subscribe to Stephen’s blog and contact him at stephen [at] leadershipwriter [dot] com.