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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol 35 no. 17. 19th July 1972

Too Much Technology

Too Much Technology

At the end of it we started to get the first signs of a transition from the goal of economic security to the goal of what one might call psychic security. A transition from materialism to humanism, quality of life. But it was not that simple. It wasn't only brought about by the satisfaction of one need and a natural progression to a higher one. It was also hastened by a rejection of certain aspects of the system we created to give us affluence. The society that developed out of the depression was an increasingly urbanised one. People came together to service technology. And unfortunately where you get large concentrations of people in a technological society unless the cities and towns are extremely well planned, you tend, paradoxically, to get a decline in the sense of community. People become used to the sight of other people. A certain impairment of consciousness results. People become insensitive to other people. You get a lowering in the emotional quality of human interaction. A second aspect of the society was the pervasiveness of technology. And unfortunately too much technology in life tends to crush and limit the human spirit and its freedom of expression. Now that sounds rather religious but it is true nevertheless. So in America about eight years ago you got the start of two movements which posterity, I am sure, will judge to be quite momentous —the Hippie Movement and the Anti Vietnam Movement. Both, in different ways, rejected the old values, although the hippies' was a more comprehensive rejection. What the hippies were saying was, basically, this: We have to drop out of society to recreate our links with other people on a more spontaneous and warmer basis than is the norm in society. This was summed up by their four-letter word. Love. They said, there is too much technology and organisation in our lives. We have got to get back to nature. This was symbolised by those two words. Flower Power. And, thirdly, was their involvement with drugs. They used LSD as a means to expand consciousness in a society which was neither vibrant nor stimulating. They used marijuana in the way that people mainly use it today- as a group thing; something you share with people; something that increases rapport—an aid to communication in a society which builds subtle barriers between people. The Hippie Movement overlapped with the Anti-Vietnam movement but the two were really separate. What the Vietnam protesters were saying, in essence, was this: We reject the conventional military strategy of forward defence, especially in this case. It is a strategy with roots in old value systems containing all sorts of irrational fears about physical and economic insecurity. Your picture of how America is threatened from abroad is completely out of keeping with contemporary realities. We don't believe in your war. We don't want to fight in your war. We don't want to kill innocent people. We don't want to kill people.

Cartoon of mankind's greatest hope