Silence by Erling Kagge

Author:Erling Kagge
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2017-11-21T05:00:00+00:00

Doug Aitken

Modern Soul, 2016 Credit 8

15.

Silence is about rediscovering, through pausing, the things that bring us joy.

My children hardly pause anymore. They are always accessible, and almost always busy. “Everyone is the other, no one is themselves,” wrote Martin Heidegger. The three of them tend to sit in front of a screen—whether alone or together with others. I do it too. Become engulfed in my smartphone, enslave myself to my own tablet—as a consumer and at times as a producer. I am constantly interrupted, interruptions engendered by other interruptions. I rummage around in a world that has little to do with me. Attempt to be effective until I realize I won’t get any further regardless of how effective I’ve become. It feels like trying to find your way through fog on a mountain, without a compass at hand, and ending up walking around in circles. The goal is to be busy and effective, nothing else.

It is easy to assume that the essence of technology is technology itself, but that is wrong. The essence is you and me. It’s about how we are altered by the technology we employ, what we hope to learn, our relationship with nature, those we love, the time we spend, the energy that is consumed and how much freedom we relinquish to technology. Yes, it’s true what many say, that distances are eclipsed by technology, but that is a banal fact. The central issue is rather, as Heidegger pointed out, that “nearness remains outstanding.” In order to achieve nearness, we must, according to the derided philosopher, relate to the truth, not to technology. Having tried my hand at internet dating, I am inclined to agree with Heidegger.

(Of course, Heidegger could not have predicted the possibilities offered by current technology. He was thinking about cars of fifty horsepower, film projectors and punch-card machines, which were all the rage. But he had an inkling of what might come.)

We are going to give up our own freedom in our eagerness to use new technology, Heidegger claimed. To shift from being free people to becoming resources. The thought is even more fitting now than when he first expressed it. We will not become a resource for one another, unfortunately, but for something less appealing. A resource for organizations such as Apple, Facebook, Instagram, Google, Snapchat and governments, who are trying to map us all out, with our voluntary assistance, in order to use or sell the information. It smacks of exploitation.

The question that Humpty Dumpty poses to Alice remains: “Which is to be master—that’s all.” You, or someone you don’t know?

Humans are social creatures. Being accessible can be a good thing. We are unable to function alone. Yet it’s important to be able to turn off your phone, sit down, not say anything, shut your eyes, breathe deeply a couple of times and attempt to think about something other than what you are normally thinking about.

The alternative is to not think anything at all. You may call this meditation, yoga, mindfulness or merely common sense.

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