Friday, August 25, 2017

Cultivating the Real World over Digital Space, and Dignity over Narcissism.
The late Pope Saint John Paul II, arguably the first global Pope, spent a good
portion of his papacy talking about "the Dignity of Work." In his 1988 encyclical
Laborem Exercens, JPII makes the point that work is exclusive to mankind. This
ability work separates us from animals, because, for one of many reasons, we are
able to cultivate the Earth around us and orient it to the greater Good, and reflect
the creation of God.

"Work is one of the characteristics that distinguish[es] man from the rest of creatures, whose
activity for sustaining their lives cannot be called work. Only man is capable of work, and only man
works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth. Thus work bears a particular
mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons. And
this mark decides its interior characteristics; in a sense it constitutes its very nature."

When we think of things that are cultivated in society, we generally think of lush
gardens, well-pruned rose bushes, and gardens free of invasive ivy and weeds.
Gardens are easy to visualize, and a joy to cultivate for those who take the time
in. The roses that give off a romantic air. The tall trees that give shade from the
heat. The basil plants that lend themselves to good food. A well-cultivated garden
is easily enjoyed by all of creation. From the bees that jump from flower to flower
and pollinate, to the birds that create nests in the high trees, to the person who
sits in awe, relaxing on the green grass and taking in the beauty of the creation of
God. In fact, the cultivation of the Earth was the first task

Genesis 2:15 "The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and
care for it."

And gardens are not the only thing that man can cultivate. This dignity of work
that man has embedded into his soul spreads deep into creation. From the floor
plans of architects, to the caring mother that fixes beautiful paintings straightly
onto the wall of a home, the idea of cultivation is seen throughout daily life.

Thus, with our work cultivating the Earth and showing it to be good, as it says in
the Hymn 'O Holy Night', "The soul felt its worth." Man, after his work is finished,
can breathe in, marvel at the creation his work brought forth, bask in the dignity
given to him by God through his work, and enjoy it with the rest of God's living
creatures.

So in a world whose happenings are increasingly taking place in a digital space, it

only feels natural that Man has the inclination to take this same attitude towards
the digital realm. We want to make our mark in the space where our interactions
and daily happenings our occurring. Today, man cultivates his digital space by
choosing from different Operating systems, wallpapers, fonts, icon sizes, themes,
browsers, phone apps, computer programs, ringtones, mail clients, router
settings, social media platforms, and so on. I could literally (And I do mean
literally) go on forever on the amount of choices that one person has with the
setup of their digital devices.

As someone who has spent the last few weeks tweaking their computer and
phone akin to Goldilocks of the Three Bears fame, I can see the appeal of it. There
is a desire to make your start screen organized, visible, and pleasing. To have all
of your MP3 song files tagged correctly. To have your icons neatly organized into
subfolders. The ultimate user experience, cultivated to one person: You.

Rather than a space where all of creation can enjoy, the digital realm enclosed
within the confines of the screen are seen and enjoyed by only one person: The
User.

This user, after purchasing his device, is given total control over his domain. A
domain where there is no consequence, no other creations to influence, and no
outward sign or effect of the cultivation, brings forth a complete exercise in
narcissism.

Initially, man pours through menus upon menus of settings to tinker with out of
genuine curiousity. Soon, he beings to change settings attuned to his own self-
gratification, and as each setting is fixed to his content and stacked up, the
porridge of Goldilocks continuing bowls gets sweeter and sweeter, and the allure
of testing each new one attracts the user. Time continues to roll by, in the
meantime creating a seemingly-perfect "world" (I say that in the loosest term
possible) for the individual to get lost in. Soon, swallowed up by his own creation,
he becomes a man isolated, left to fiddle with his creations, without any
interaction with the real world that God created for us to enjoy. It is a tragedy like
no other, for not only does the man spend his work cultivating something that
does not exist, he loses the sight of his fellow man in the process. And the tech
titans: Google, Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, have successfully bought the man's
soul, sucking them into their ecosystem fraught with branding, stacked in a way
that is nearly impossible for man to escape. For his data is sold to cloud services,
proprietary platforms that make it difficult to move from one place to another. He
as a consumer, initially tempted by the promises of endless entertainment, has
found himself in chains to the services of a major corporation.

With this thought, I am reminded of the 1999 movie The Matrix, starring
Christopher Reeves. In the movie, The Matrix is shown as a place where man's
consciousness is uploaded and lived out in a completely digital world,
unbeknownst to the human being, who is convinced that it is real life. Meanwhile,
the human is held in slavery, being used as an energy source in a pod by a
malicious AI that promulgated itself. While today's reality is thankfully not dark,
we must still be wary of the digital trappings that modern man can fall into. This
scene between Keanu Reeves' character Neo, and enlightened user Morpheus, has
real undertones for a society whose populace is currently marked by people
walking around with their face buried in their smartphone.

To take the Red Pill here, is to adhere to the words of John Paul II in Laborem Exercens:

"Just as human activity proceeds from man, so it is ordered towards

man. For when a man works he not only alters things and society, he
develops himself as well. He learns much, he cultivates his resources, he
goes outside of himself and beyond himself. Rightly understood, this
kind of growth is of greater value than any external riches which can be
garnered ... Hence, the norm of human activity is this: that in accord
with the divine plan and will, it should harmonize with the genuine good
of the human race, and allow people as individuals and as members of
society to pursue their total vocation and fulfill it"

We cannot let ourselves be bogged down in the "Matrix" of the modern age. Man
is rightly made to work, and cultivate the Earth. But time wasted raking over the
1s and 0s of modern technology, rather than raking the good soil, cultivating
beauty, and planting the seeds of friendship, we will never achieve the common
good. Rather, we will be left with a husk of the world, a world neglected by the
very man who was meant to care for it. Here, we must adhere to the words of John
Paul II.