By Matthew Dickerson
Flourish magazine, Fall 2010
Genetic engineering in the foods you eat. Advanced surgical equipment. Military weaponry. The Internet and social networking. The stove in your kitchen.
Technologies are becoming more powerful and more pervasive in everyday life. What is a healthy attitude toward technology? What is the right use of technology? What technologies can be rightly used? These are perennial questions, but they grow more important all the time. They are also questions that cannot practically be ignored; failure to ask the questions is an answer in itself.
At least one cohesive approach to these questions can be found in the writings of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Wendell Berry. All three authors address, in both their fiction and non-fiction works, not only attitudes toward technology, but also the philosophies behind these attitudes and the actions—and people—they produce.
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