On the microscopic scale, the destruction of autonomy (the reduction of spaces to determine your life) through the introduction of evermore technological prostheses can only give way to a biting despair. A sensation that correlates with the degree of depreciation and abrasion that you’re subjected to. The wheel of progress turns ever faster. Before, broad transformations in society could span several generations. Today, inside the space of one generation it sometimes seems that you’re not born in the same world. This explosion of speed requires an extraordinary capacity of human beings to adapt. In response there’s a whole range of functional “defects” towards the world’s conduct. For example this can be manifested in neurotic or bodily illnesses. Human beings don’t live isolated in outer space but indeed inhabit this planet. Every adjustment to their “habitat” influences their possibilities and capacities to reflect, but also to feel and act. This is of course not a privilege of the hyper-technological society that we know today.
We could say that every civilization works in this way. Thus the question acquires more depth; from which point on does a sharp adjustment in the habitat leads to a loss of autonomy, a suppression of freedom? If every adjustment is not in itself contrary to freedom? But these are questions that by far surpass the modest reflection of this article.
Translated by The Local Kids (Issue 7 – Summer 2021) from Avis de tempetes, #39, March 2021]