The real root-sin of modern man is that, in ignoring and condemning being, and especially his own being, he has made his existence a disease and an affliction. And, strangely, be has done this with all kinds of vitalistic excuses, proclaiming at every turn that he stands on frontiers of new abundance and permanent bliss.
This ambiguity and arbitrariness appear most clearly in technology. There is nothing wrong with technology in itself. It could indeed serve to deepen and perfect the quality of men’s existence and in some ways it has done this. As Lewis Mumford said: “Too many thought not only that mechanical progress would be a positive aid to human improvement, which is true, but that mechanical progress is the equivalent of human improvement, which turns out to be sheer nonsense.”
We have not even begun to plumb the depths of nonsense into which this absurd error has plunged us.
Thomas Merton, OCSO
Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, PP-201-202
