I was thinking the other day about the philosophical side of my project and wondering were it positions me in the increasingly technological world that I find myself existing in. I mean, food is cheap and plentiful in our society, why the hell would anyone make life difficult for themselves, especially at such a fundamental level as their day to day dietary habits? If I'm honest, it does seem like a bit of a backwards step, Amish style but without the cool outfits. When people hear about my project they do tend to assume that I have to be providing my own power, riding to school, carving my own computer out of balsa wood etc. They seem a little disappointed when they find out how soft I am, not going completely back to the stone age. "No, just the food," I say. One thing at a time.
But really, why not get rid of it all? Why stop at just feeding myself? Where should I draw the line?
I guess even the most dedicated computer nerd may ask at some point "Technology is great but does humanity need it in every instance? To solve every problem? Is it always necessary?
Take as an example the axe. A useful and obviously quite benign piece of technology, unless of course you chop yourself with it. OK, lets say a shovel. Gardening, burying things and scraping up dog poo would be quite difficult without a shovel. It takes relatively low energy input to produce, is long lasting, useful and mostly harmless. A great piece of constructive technology.
You hear people slagging off at "the evils of technology" and the like, but what about the good stuff? For instance, if I had my leg chopped off in some kind of nasty combine harvester accident I would be begging to get someone to stick it back on, probably quite loudly. I would not be eschewing the surgeon's arsenal of useful medical tools and tricks in order to maintain some kind of luddite morality. Even a less gruesome scenario like seeing my dying aunty in Honolulu might justsify catching a plane, another very useful piece of tech.
I spoke at our highschool assembly the other day and pondered monoculture as a sustainable ideal. Most of the students expressed that it was a pretty high tech, high input kind of food production. We talked about low tech alternatives like hunting and gathering food from a jungle a la natural and how that would probably not support every hungry belly on the planet, not to mention the mosquitos. I spoke about one thing that inspires me - Permaculture: a thoughtful, sustainable and responsible form of food production. Google it if you're not familiar with it. It involves intelligently designing living and built systems to utilise natural flows of energy to create a synthetic ecosystem that is capable of producing food and other resources without massive energy inputs. Hows that for a definition? It was "invented" by an Australian no less; a guy named Bill Mollison. I confess I have no Permaculture training but really like the concept. It is kind of like the ultimate organic technology in my opinion.
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| My favourite piece of technology - my long handled fork. |
I'm pondering all of this because my colleague Ted and I were talking about what sort of method would be the most appropriate to reheat last night's Dahl at school for lunch. To me, and perhaps it is just me, and Ted of course, it didn't seem entirely Kosher to be nuking my homegrown, organic, hand planted , hand picked, lovingly cooked tucker with 1400 Watts of microwave energy. Do I need my food heated up, pronto? Do I need it heated up at all? Am I just becoming some reactionary middle aged Hippie owned by his own extremely paranoid fears? I know that this is a debatable topic, the safety issue of microwave ovens, mobile phones and the like. Perhaps a small anecdote is in order.
I played in a band once with a fellow who had worked for a large telecommunications company and who had had, if you'll pardon the expression, "fried his tadpoles", if you know what I mean, by working in front of a transmitting microwave dish for too long. Granted the energy levels were far greater than the silver box on top of the fridge, but it still makes you cross your legs thinking about it doesn't it? As an aside he also hurt his back on the job, the poor fellow, and lives in pain, childless, but very well on the compensation money. Is his story an indication that all mightn't be apples down at techno city?
Ted and I came up with a simple solution for the Nuking Food Quandry: buy a small charcoal stove from China town, steal some charcoal from Mark's forging stash down in the hardcraft shed and fire it up at morning tea. It shouldn't smoke out the staffroom too much. We haven't yet tackled the issue of refrigeration technology which cooled the food down so much in the firstplace!
All of this talk to get to the crux of my position.
In acute situations such as losing a leg in a combine harvester, seeing dying aunties or having to heat dahl up in 45 seconds, technology is really the business we want to be dealing in. Shucks, would you be reading this if I had to post it to you? Humans have a right to assisting technology in acute situations - it can be incredibly useful, interesting or lifesaving.
But when technology becomes ingrained in our lives, I believe that chronic problems can develop. An obvious example of this that we all see is physical and mental health in the western world. Our patterns of work are such that they no longer entail physical labour, but rather stress inducing tasks. We now have to work, to get money, to spend on keeping fit at the gym or trying to relax.
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| My second favourite piece of technology - my super skinny digital scales. Note the upside down nature of the picture - my computer being pesky again. |
To be controversial I will go as far as to say that the tacit assumption that simple technology constantly needs improving is fundamentally an extension of the "White Man's Burden" of the colonial period. Technology is essentially a "civilising" force, the bane of primitives the world over.
All of this gasbagging is of course moot. People will not put away their smartphones and take step back in time and make their lives harder for themselves, unless they are embarking on some kind of Individual Research Project. The real question is - Can technology solve the problems created by technology? Harvester technology induced injury fixed by medical technology? Probably. Can Bruno be hopeful that modern science can get his tadpoles swimming again? Maybe. Will modern science improve on the shovel? Hmmm.
Thanks for indulging me in this spiel. I promise I'll talk about corn next week,
Till then,
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