Saturday, November 18, 2006

Metropolis and the use of technology

Recently we watched Fritz Lang's Metropolis. This raised several questions related to the uses of technology and if technology itself is evil or indifferent. Reminded me of Joyce Carol Oates and her position and questions regarding nature or Nature. In Metropolis the ManRobot is show as an evil thing with one single goal, to seed dissent and confusion among the workers. The movie was made in a time where production processes where being changed with the introduction of assembly lines and people were afraid of becoming simple automatons that would simply spend their days in monotonous repetitive tasks and that could easily be replaced by technology. It was also the birth of unions and worker movements. But lets focus on the question. Is technology evil? I would have to say no! Is the gun shoots a deadly bullet evil? No! The hand that wields it is to blame. Technology is simply a tool, it is what you make of it. The ManRobot in Metropolis was not evil in itself but the twisted mind that created it was. Technology is not evil, people on the other hand can be.

1 comment:

Shawn said...

my sentiments exactly. Technology is not inherently evil. In my entry on Metropolis I talk about that as well. They just do what they are programmed to. Tech can be used for good as is seen all the time like in medicine and some media. In Snow, tech is used to chronicle an entire life. That idea is amazing. i wish I had a video of my entire life to watch back.